


Stranded

by BlackberryAvar



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Dragons, Gen, Nadders, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, Survival, politicking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2020-10-20 00:11:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 83,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20666114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackberryAvar/pseuds/BlackberryAvar
Summary: Washed up on a deserted island by chasing the Heir, it is all Astrid can do to keep from starving or, worse, freezing to death. Her fate is sealed when she takes on a rogue, wounded dragon and loses. Right? Those who worship Hiccstrid will be disappointed. AUverse and some humor. Reposting to AO3.Updates whenever I feel like it, with thirty chapters in stock, as it is a finished work.Complete on fanfiction.net





	1. Chapter 1

**A/N. This was my first ever fic on Fanfiction.net. As you can see, I revisited it sometime later, improved the prose and the writing. Beware, the next few chapters haven't gotten that treatment.   
**

“**_Deserves_ _it!_ _I_ _daresay_ _he_ does_._ _Many_ _that_ _live_ _deserve_ _death_. _And_ _some_ _that_ _die_ _deserve_ _life_. _Can_ _you_ _give_ _it_ _to_ _them?_ _Then_ _do_ _not_ _be_ _too_ _eager_ _to_ _deal_ _out_ _death_ _in_ _judgement_. _For_ _even_ _the_ _very_ _wise_ _cannot_ _see_ _all_ _ends_." **

**The game that Stoick and Gobber are playing is a dragon trivia game invented by Fishlegs to help him remember called Trick of Fire. It quickly caught on and became modified by the elders into what it is today. I’ll tell you how it’s played later.**

**Sea - A nautical term for waves.**

**Updated December 26th, 2018, as of this rewrite. Posted to Archive of Our Own on September 16th, 2019.  
**

**I hope you enjoy it, and leave some feedback on my future writing, though this was written a long time ago.**

* * *

Gobber looked down at the reflection in his pitcher, thinking. What was it that had him so concerned? Stoick. His friend had not been himself lately. It was as if he was getting into that mood again, the one where he forewent his usually solid judgment to pursue that devil nest.

The smith watched as Stoick sighed and put down his tankard of mead. Contrary from what one would expect, Stoick liked his drinks light, whereas Gobber liked his spunk high in alcohol and low on the sweet. It was wine vs beer all over again, and Gobber had made many jibes about it with his old friend. It wasn’t really dangerous, seeing as though it took a day and a half of steady drinking to get the chief drunk.

The elder Haddock had ordered another search for the dragons hideout, though all those before had been fruitless. The fact that the expeditions were only partly for his revenge didn’t help much.

Gobber could remember the scene almost as if he were still there. It had only been a few hours ago, and his mind was still sharp, whetted by his years of dangerous work.

“We will find their home and take it, then the devils will leave,” he had said. “One more search, before the ice sets in. It’s the only way.”

That was only part of what he had said – it was the same old argument all over again, complete will the obligatory ‘it’s the only way’ that he had been spouting since The Incident.

As it was, no one had wanted to go until the chief had told all those staying behind that they would have to keep an eye on his boy, the boy who also happened to be Gobber’s apprentice. Hiccup.

“Stoick,” What’s on yeh?” Gobber broke in on his reverie. “Yeh’ve been a bit off lately.”

“Hiccup.” Spoken drily. “Someday that boy will be Chief. But he just isn’t a viking Gobber. How can he be Chief when he can’t even look the part. Hell, he can’t even play the part. I had to clean up his mess the other night when he claimed he shot down a night fury.”

“He’s smart though. Yeh gotta give ‘im that.”

“He might be smart, but he won’t be able to make choices when it matters most. I’ve seen ‘im. And he won’t be able to handle a wife either. He locks up whenever a girl so much as looks at ‘im.”

“All the more reason to start training him to be Chief. You and I won’t always be here for him Stoick, all we can do is prepare him for the world before we die. I say give the boy a chance.”

For a moment it seemed that Stoick might like the idea. His eyes wavered only a little, but Gobber saw it for what it was. The smith held his breath as Stoick considered, but the Chief only sighed and reached for a stack of wooden chips that had been lying on the table next to him.

It would take time for Stoick to unwind. Gobber brought a small handful of cards out from one of his pockets, of which there were many. Etched into the faces of the pieces were carven images of beasts, both dragons and others drawn only from Viking legend. On their backs were the signature of the village’s budding craftsman, an Ingerman.

This was a game both of them had played many times since its invention; a hobby they indulged in when they were idle, though that did not happen often. For a minute neither of them talked, each busy sorting their pieces and picking their hand. Gobber broke in, shuffling his cards as he spoke.

“I have an idea,” he said, slowly, as he struggled to hold on to the flitting thought.

“What is it?” asked Stoick. He flipped two cards face up on the middle of the table.“I put Gronckle, extra strength. Counter or draw?”

‘I don’t have anything to deal with that combination, except for the Nightmare, but I’m saving that card,’ thought Gobber, but he kept these thoughts to himself and put on a bluff. 

Stoick looked at Gobber intently. “Draw,” said the smith. Stoick took three chips and flipped the extra strength into the discards. Gobber drew a save out of the pile, which was rare. He sneaked it into his sleeve for ‘safekeeping’ and played a Terror to weaken his opponent.

“What if we sent Hiccup on a voyage, to prove himself, go a viking, that sort of thing.” Gobber said.

“He’ll mess up before the ship leaves the dock, never mind sailing. He’ll slip on something and spill the months rations as soon as you turn around.” said Stoick.

The problem was that he had no faith in his son.

“Yeh don’t know that,” said Gobber.

“Yes, I do.”

“No, no yeh don’t,”

“Yes, I do,”

“All I’m saying is to give the boy a chance, Stoick. Children are like a piece of hot metal.”

“Here we go again.” said Stoick. He had heard this analogy before.

“Yeh need to shape them in the way you want, otherwise it’ll just be a piece of scrap, and you only have so much time to do it before your material cools. Hiccup isn’t going to be like that forever Stoick. He’s already-” Stoick ‘put’ a dragon card. Timberjack, dangerous.

“Counter?” Stoick was trying to divert Gobber’s attention. It worked.

Gobber rolled the dice with his Nightmare, hating to use it so early in the game. His roll was good, but not good enough. Stoick’s cards had been knocked out of the fight, but his best dragon was useless. The smith drew reinforcements, hoping Stoick had played his most powerful card at the beginning of the game.

“I don’t want to risk a ship just for Hiccup’s sake. We could send him to the Meatheads to renew our treaty. That’s due in a few weeks now, and we have to renew the agreement every year. We have to send someone important, especially if I’m going off to hunt for the nest.”

‘He’s coming around now,’ thought Gobber, ‘but he’s still dead set on the hunt. What a shame.’

“There’s another reason why I’m proposing this Stoick. Yeh know Astrid is pretty much destined to be the heir’s husband, for politics.” More statement than question there.

“And you’d prefer that Astrid like him? She hates the boy right now.”

“Exactly. I think she’d be more liable to not go running off on wedding day if she respected him at least.” Gobber said, then added, “A chief should know his men, and be in good faith with them. Yeh should be the one to know that of all people Stoick.”

Their conversation went back and forth for hours, even after the vikings all left for the night. Finally Stoick won their game two out of three, so Gobber went back to the forge not knowing whether he had convinced Stoick or not. He didn’t really care at the moment though. He was too tired.

* * *

The next morning Stoick began loading the ships. He was gone in the afternoon.

Gobber returned to the forge, where he found Hiccup pounding at a sword to get it back in shape.

“More work? ” asked Hiccup, “Cause I could really use some more work.” He gestured sarcastically to the pile of weapons on the bench waiting to be fixed. They had been broken in the last raid.

“Actually, you won’t be having to do that Hiccup.”

“Really?” Hiccup’s expression was impossible to read.

“Pack your stuff, we leave for Meathead island tomorrow. And don’t yeh think about getting up to your tricks. I know you.”

Hiccup went from nonchalance to shock in a matter of seconds.

“Wha..What? Why am I going to Meathead island?”

“Your father’s giving you more responsibility. Better not blow it. Behave. Well. Right.” said Gobber, then added, “I’ll take care of those swords for you.”

“Thanks Gobber.” said Hiccup. He was sincere at least, thought Gobber with satisfaction.

Gobber  took an  axe and started sharpening it on the grinder. It was peddle-powered and made by Hiccup. He had never had one that worked so well. It never jammed, never dulled and it was easy to use. Hiccup was a genius.

He repositioned the axe to sharpen evenly. When it was done Gobber put it down on the finished bench and wrote ‘Salty Hofferson’s axe,  repaired. G ” in his  repair book.  It was another one of Hiccup’s ideas. The book made it easier for Gobber to keep accounts of what he had and what he hadn’t. Nowadays he only did a small part of the work and Hiccup did the rest. 

Hiccup was in his corner now, a little tent of sorts that Hiccup had made by hanging blankets up. It was his private workspace, the place where he had built Gobber’s grinder and where he had embellished Astrid’s axe.

Gobber finished late that night and helped to load the last of the supplies on board their ship. The boat which they were taking to the Meatheads was the smallest of them all, and their only warship that Stoick hadn’t taken. New warships were already being built in anticipation of their losses from the nest hunt. Their crew was the usual for a treaty mission, except now Stoick wasn’t on board. Phlegma was there, as well as Fishlegs and Astrid. Astrid had come of her own accord, for reasons she had kept to herself.

_ Perhaps she is protecting Hiccup. _

H e didn’t think so. Since when did she care about Hiccup. She was probably trying to earn prestige for her family as a young shield-maiden. She could handle herself.

* * *

That had been two weeks ago. Now Gobber was standing on the deck of a viking long ship, looking uneasily out on an approaching winter tempest.

Hiccup had proved to be better than anyone had imagined. The poor lad was actually quite good at diplomacy, and had managed to make good friends with Thuggory during the four days they had been at Meathead island.

Maybe he was good for something after all, despite his obvious physical failings as a Viking, though the Meatheads were better than most. The boy would need to beef up if he was ever to interact with the other tribes, especially if he was challenged to a duel.

Gobber shivered. The thought bothered him, but he found there was more irritating the hairs on the back of his neck than Hiccup’s size.

“Looks like a bad storm.” said Phlegma.

“Aye.” said Gobber.

“We still have about an hour before it breaks,” said the shield-maiden.

“Get into the hold Hiccup, yeh don’t want to fall overboard,” said Gobber.

“Yes, Gobber,” said Hiccup. “Do you want me to bring up some sardines while we wait?”

“Stop joking around and get down there.” said Gobber. “Yeh never know what might happen, and it’s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to you.”

Hiccup gave Gobber the evil eye but jumped into the dark, damp hold, lit only by the flickering sea lantern of a sturdy seaman. He closed the hatch.

Gobber spent the next few minutes feeling the breeze pick up. Steadily the wind had gone from slightly annoying to worrying, as howling gusts whistled through the mainsail and bit at exposed skin.

“This one’s a killer.” said Gobber.

“Secure the deck!” shouted Phlegma.

“Yes ma’am”, shouted the Quartermaster, one Screech Ingerman. He was raising his voice to a good pitch now, trying to be heard over the wind. A strong musty smell filled the air, but it was strangely crisp.

Sleet, thought Gobber. If rain was bad and snow was worse, sleet was the unholy combination of the two. It froze to anything it touched, ropes, fingers, rudders and mainmasts. The only thing a mariner hated more than a cold sleet was hail, for it ripped holes in exposed cloth, tearing the sails and rendering a ship useless; it could even kill a man if the icy balls were big enough. There might be hail from the looks of it, but there would surely be sleet.

He could hear the rumble of thunder, louder now. The wind began to pick up and the ocean spray was blinding. Men began to hurry.

“Furl the mainsail! Tighten the jibs!,” Phlegma yelled, struggling to be heard over the din. “Fasten your belts to the deck. I won’t have anyone going overboard on my watch.”

“Everyone have their safety ropes on?!” shouted Screech, now living up to his name.

A chorus of aye’s rang throughout the ship.

The waves started pounding on the broadside of the boat as the storm built to its full fury, though it was hardly there yet. The sheets of rain and sleet were deceiving, and the visibility range had closed to less than three score of feet. A man standing on the aft quarterdeck of the longship would’ve been hard pressed to see the bows. A trio of sailors hung on the boom of the mainmast by a thread, working to roll up the sail.

If the sails couldn’t be furled, the ship would be driven by the wind, scudding along at the mercy of the storm. Eventually she might turn sideways, and when that happened she would capsize. The gale would push at her beam and catch at her sails and then the ship would roll over and sink, perhaps splinter, scattering her unfortunate crewman to the tender mercies of the northern oceans. They would be frozen solid in a quarter of an hour, dead in another fifteen minutes, assuming they could find a piece of driftwood to float on. Without something to hold on to death would come sooner even than that.

They had to run with the wind. Every man knew the risks. So it was that the helmsman’s cry came at the worst possible time.

“The wind’s switching directions! Gusts from the starboard bow!”

The ship, which had been pitching and bucking like a sailor drunk suddenly began to lean to port as the deck slid out from under the feet of her crew.

“Heave to! Turn to port!” screamed Screech.

“I can’t!” yelled the helmsman. “The tiller is jammed!”

“Is it broken!” came the reply.

“I don’t know!”

A wave rolled over the beam, drenching two men who were coming to the helm’s aid and splashing over the deck. If the tiller was broken, all was lost.

“The ship’s rolling over, we can’t keep her upright forever!”

A shout came from the quarterdeck, muffled by the pouring rain. “We’re taking on water in the hold! There’s a leak under the waterline!”

“Start bailing!” shouted Gobber. “We can’t afford to flood!”

The ship rolled again and this time the railings met the sea. There was no way they could survive at this rate. The hull settled and the boat sunk lower into the ocean. They were sinking.

The hatch to the hold opened and Hiccup climbed out, drenched by sleet. Frozen raindrops clung to the hem of his tunic and his clothing was soaked. In the tumult no one noticed that he had no safety rope. They were all busy trying to save the ship. And they were failing. The storm was too strong, the waves too high, the hull too filled with water for them to recover on their own.

Gobber fell to his knees and prayed to the Gods. “Oh Thor and Odin All-father! Save us, if you care for your people!”

For one, terrible, terrible moment, there was no change. Then the wind died down, if only for a second. And when it blew again, it came from the stern. They were saved.

The ship pitched and bucked horribly, but they were alive. The storm began to die down but they struggled on for another two hours, bailing water. The leak in the hull could not be fixed, only contained, and Hiccup had to stay on the deck as well as Astrid.

The torrent of rain softened, if only a little, and Gobber saw a dim shape to his left.

“Rocks off the port bow sir!” Screech, bless his sharp eyes. Gobber could hardly keep his eyes open against the constant assault of sleet, much less keep an eye out for shoals.

Then several things happened at once.

A shock buckled the planks of the ship. She had struck a rock just beneath the waterline and impaled herself, the deadly flooding staunched only by the hard granite.

Caught off guard by the sudden shift, Hiccup stumbled and fell against the port railing, almost going overboard but catching himself on the sturdy wood. Gobber let out a breath of relief. But fate was not on the boy’s side. A rogue wave roared over the starboard beam. Weakened by the hours of constant bending, the railing broke, and Hiccup tumbled off the side.

The safety rope should’ve caught him, but it didn’t, because he didn’t have one on. He had never gotten one when he went down into the hold and he had forgotten his when he had come above deck later. In the confusion, no one had seen it.

For the rest of his life Gobber would remember Hiccup plunging towards the water in slow motion, with his hand grasping for the ship in one last attempt at survival, his face lit only by the dim light of the ship’s storm lantern. Then there was a splash, and he was swallowed by the waves.

“Noooo!” he cried, and then he was gone.

“Hiccup!” yelled Astrid. She untied her safety rope and dived in after him.

“Astrid!” roared Gobber, but it was too late to save them. There was a chance, a tiny chance, that they would make it to the deck. Gobber rushed over to the side of the ship, but he couldn’t see them. If they couldn’t get back on board, at least he wished them a quick death.

* * *

The water was cold, numbing my senses. From a later standpoint, I can’t tell exactly you why I jumped after Hiccup. It all made sense in the heat of the moment, but it’s probably the most crazy thing I’ve ever done in my life. After riding on a dragon of course. We’ll get to that later.

I couldn’t see Hiccup. I looked around, treading water before a sea knocked me in the face and I was submerged. My lungs felt like bursting from the pressure, but I’ve always been a decent swimmer, and I kicked my feet down and propelled myself to the top. I struggled for a bit, then I was clear. I coughed out water that had gotten into my lungs. I saw a little brown dot riding the crest of the next sea and I dove after him.

Hiccup was half drowned, he had been caught off guard when he was thrown off the ship. Typical. I grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and looked up to get my bearings. Only to find that there was no land in sight.

Hold on, hold on. The cold was starting to get to me. I had no clue how long we’d been in the water. My fingers were numb, and I feared that I’d drop Hiccup into the sea. I could see a beach in front of me. Using the last of my strength I swam for it. It was now or never. A large sea caught me from behind and picked me up. I was sent tumbling head over heels. The very breath was sucked out of my lungs and it slammed me into the sand, and I saw no more.

* * *

I woke up feeling very cold and stiff.

To my left was a small plain, stretching away into the distance. It was rocky and there was a large hill in the middle with some trees on it. To my right was a sleet-covered forest. Some of the trees had already broken and were laying split on the ground, the others looked slippery. It was lightly snowing, and if I opened my mouth I could feel the burn of snowflakes melting on my tongue.

The pound of surf sounded distant to my ears, yet I remember being thrown onto a beach. Where am I? And how did I get here?


	2. Escape

**A/N: (To get it out of the way)  
**

"**Curiouser and Curiouser"**

**-?**

**If you are the first to figure out the quote, I'll put your name in the chapter and give you a victory cookie. **

**(::)**

**Using the wayback machine, I can tell you I was positively thrilled when I first posted this on Fanfiction.net. Looking at it now, I think it needs a rework, but in the first days I was pretty good - good before I got into brick blocks of text that were more giant than the guy Jack killed trying to slide down the big beanstalk, to use a myth from th early days. Enjoy!**

**Published on AO3 September 23rd, Monday, 2019.**

**Changelog: Nothing as yet. I'll probably come back and rewrite a large portion of this when I'm done with the fic over on FFN.**

* * *

It had been a simple raid. Tempest had been sick, but she had wanted to go. She wanted to prove that she could help the nest. She hadn't come back with enough food to satiate the Queen. She had only dropped a single fish in the pit and had cowered in a small pile of rocks away from the Queen's lair to hide from her inevitable wrath.

Sure enough, the Queen was hungry, and she had climbed up her hole until she was staring directly at Tempest's piece of cover.

"**How dare you come back with only a small ****cod****!"**

Tempest was forced to turn and look at The Red Death.

She opened her mouth, then stuttered and couldn't find her words.

"**Any excuses, hmmm?"**

"I-I, I was so hungry. It w-was only a little."

"**How many times have I told you to do your own fishing. My orders must be obeyed." the Queen had said, then added, "Guards! Bring her to me. I must make an example of her."**

Two Gronckle guards brought Tempest to the edge of the cave and threw her in.

The Queen snapped her up in a single bite. She was so huge that Tempest wasn't even a mouthful.

The sickening crunch of bones reverberated through the cave. Ocean could see it all.

She was shocked. Tempest was her mother. She had never thought that the Queen might kill her. She couldn't say anything, for she was rooted to the ground and all she could seem to do was watch. From that moment on she knew she feared The Red Death, and would do anything to avoid being eaten. There was a little hate buried in the back, but it was too afraid to come out.

"**Th****is**** is what happens when someone disobeys. Take note. All obey ME! I am your Queen."**

It was at that moment that she had passed out.

No one had the guts to even apologize to Ocean for her loss, for none dared risk her wrath. What's done is done, the elders had said, and that was that. Only Stulte..

Ocean's nightmare shifted. Now she was standing with her father on a sea-stack. He had taught her how to fly. She could still remember his warm voice. He was dead now, killed by a viking while trying to steal a sheep to appease the Queen.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yes father, it is. Look at all the flowers."

They stood there for a while admiring the view, until her father interrupted the silence.

"Tell me child, how did we get here?"

"We flew!" she chirped.

"You flew. I will always be proud of my little baby."

He called her all those sweet names, but she didn't care. Now he was gone. Another victim of the vikings. She could hear him calling her.

"Wake up Ocean."

The sound kept pounding in her head. She was confused, until she realized she was asleep. It was probably morning now.

She woke up with a start.

It was Nayla's voice. She had probably gotten bored in the morning and come to play. Nayla had always been a dragon who wanted to wake up at some ungodly hour and then crash in the afternoon, out cold.

Morning dragons.

"Go back to sleep Nayla. I'm tired." Her morning voice, though a bit shaken from her dream.

"It's early in the morning, nobody else is up. We can play together! Isn't that fun!"

Nayla was a adolescent Nadder with more energy than a Terrible Terror. She was a few years younger than Ocean, with a well-defined shape, she would be very pretty when she grew up, though her face had not lost all of it's baby fat yet. She was not quite clumsy, but often suffered from errors in judgment that would put a Zippelback to shame.

Her pranks had cost the nest sometimes and she was always being punished for it. In fact, she was supposed to be being punished now, locked up in the barrows for the rest of the morning. She had slipped out. Ocean didn't blame her. Dragons hated being imprisoned. It went against their very nature to fly. Kind of like the nest. Ocean kept that thought to herself.

Her scales were yellow and her spines green. She had a white belly like Ocean, but her crest was a mix of colors. Her nose was a bit big on her, though she had a good sense of smell. Her eyes were light yellow, and seemed to see absolutely everything. Everything that was trouble that is.

Nayla's voice was babyish and her vocabulary limited, so everyone tended to underestimate her. Ocean privately suspected that she knew more than she let on, especially after she had somehow managed to simultaneously pull three different pranks, each on a different floor of the nest. Her ability to make dragons miserable was not to be underestimated.

"There's a reason why everyone's asleep Nayla. A well rested dragon is a happy dragon." One of her father's quotes.

"And the early dragon gets the fish. Stop sleeping in and come play with me!"

_Using my own father's words against me. Clever. _

"I'll be up in a minute. Deal?"

Nayla considered for a moment, then shook her head yes.

"Deal. I'm counting."

"I didn't mean literally!"

"A deals a deal. Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one..."

Ocean just shielded her head between her wings and tried to ignore her.

"Thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three.."

Ocean pulled her wings in tighter.

"You don't have to do that out loud!"

A few moments passed, in which Ocean fidgeted about on the cold stone unable to get any real rest because Nayla was constantly breathing in her ears when she talked. If dragons had been able to clamp their claws over their ears, Ocean would have been the first to do so.

"Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty! Time to get up."

Nayla tugged on her wing and Ocean had to give way. She made a big show of it, but inside she was happy to leave the nest, if only for a little while. She had been feeling stifled for the last few days and she wanted some fresh air.

They flew to the beach and played no-fly tag for a while in the morning sun. She generally won, even if she did cheat just a little.

"Hey, no fair! You're flying away!"

"I'm not 'flying', I'm gliding, can't you see that."

"It's still cheating!"

They bickered and made up and bickered and made up all morning. She was good friends with Nayla. Eventually they got tired of tag and started playing fly and seek.

Ocean was bigger than Nayla, and so fared worse than her, as her tail would stick out wherever she went and Nayla would inevitably find her.

It was just the opposite for Nayla. Ocean couldn't understand how the little bugger disappeared so quickly. Maybe it was her experience playing pranks on the elders, or perhaps some trick of the eyes, she didn't know.

Eventually she gave up trying to look around for her and pretended to groom herself to see if her friend would peek. She looked around, while trying not to look around and failed quite hilariously.

"_You can't do anything half-way." That was another one of her father's wise words._

Nayla couldn't resist peeking, and Ocean caught a brief yellow flash on the rocks above her. Instead of heading straight for them she stepped lightly into a gully and disappeared from her friend's sight.

She knew this area better than Nayla and used that to her advantage. She knew that the gully split and approached Nayla's hiding place from behind, and she knew that if Nayla heard her she wouldn't be able to catch her, so she tried to be quiet as an Indian. Tried.

According to the rules of the game she had to find Nayla _and_ touch her to win, and she couldn't do that if she was stubbing her claw on every last rock on the island.

The rock walls closed in on her and a cloud covered the sun. Her heart started beating faster. She slipped on a rock, which went bounding down the corridor.

She stood still for a moment, waiting for any noise betraying that her friend had detected her. She didn't worry about her scent, as she and Nayla had both dunked themselves in the water and were now clean.

The only downside was that she couldn't smell her friend either, and now had to depend on her lesser senses like touch and hearing.

The cloud passed and it was light again. Ocean thought she could see a small green object lying on the ground. She examined it.

"_Many things can be gained just by taking a closer look."_

It was one of Nayla's spines. It looked like it had been knocked against a rock and fallen off. Probably from when the dragon had pulled back to avoid being looked at, she thought. She traced its path in her mind and followed it.

Nayla could not be far now. The joy of the hunt filled her veins and she scanned the ground rapidly for her prey. She glided forward,(Not literally), every fiber of her being focused on her goal. The goal. Nothing else mattered but her and the prey.

Suddenly she could feel a presence close to her own. A secondary breath was in time with her. She clawed up to the next rock and looked down. Nobody. She had to be nearby. But where? Ocean investigated a few more crevices and rocks, and nothing escaped her gaze, for Nayla could fit anywhere.

She started to feel like Nayla was toying with her. Of course! Nayla was more experienced at this kind of thing. She might as well give up.

"_Never_ _give_ _up and never lose faith. It is only from hard work that we reap the benefits of life." Her father's words came unbidden to her mind. _He was right, she shouldn't give up.

Ocean took one last peek over another rock and saw Nayla looking the other way. She gave her a light tap on the shoulder and gave a victory crow.

"It's about time! I win. Do you want to cloud watch?"

Nayla faked a fit of sulking over her loss, but then nodded her head yes, and they sat down on the rocks together.

"That one looks like a fire stream," said Nayla.

"That one looks like a wave."

"Which one?"

"The big one in the back curling up. See?" Ocean pointed at it.

"I think it looks like a wing."

While they were arguing the cloud changed shape and assumed the appearance of a scythe.

"The sun's getting in my eyes," said Nayla, "Maybe we should sit under that tree over there." She pointed to her right.

"This coming from the dragon who has eyes the color of the daylight." said Ocean.

The Red Death had done her best to eradicate all life on the island, besides draconian of course, but there were still a few trees and sheaves of grass in off places. They were sitting under one now, the only ash tree on the island. Ocean sat happily under it, enjoying the breeze and the soft rustle of leaves as the air caressed them. A breath of wind brushed her cheek and was gone.

The scene reminded Ocean of the dream she'd had earlier. A flower waved in the wind, as if to mark her father's grave. The traitorous vikings had ended his life.

But then a rebellious thought appeared in her head. She swatted it away. It came back.

Maybe the vikings weren't evil monsters, maybe they were just protecting their things, like a dragon protected his mate. Maybe…

Ocean didn't notice that Nayla had left her side until she turned around to talk to her and she wasn't there. What was she up to?

She flew up to the nest, hoping to catch her in one of her tricks. Once Nayla had pranked a young dragon into going into old dragon Grinch's cave to get 'A basket of dried water'. The old Nightmare who lived in it was 'affectionately' named Grinch by practically the entire nest, though Ocean thought he smelled like mildew.

The young male had come running out like a deer, completely spooked. Nobody dared talk to Grinch except the Queen, and even then she kept her discussions short. Somehow he had become her second in command, perhaps because he was completely paranoid, like the Queen.

He doubted anybody and everybody. Nayla had cut it close by annoying him. He wouldn't kill you outright, but he could make your life miserable, and nobody could stop him from doing it for fear of being reported.

Ocean eventually gave up looking for Nayla and settled down in her favorite resting spot, hoping to catch up to her tricks.

She was tired, and she took the opportunity for a rest. Her wings were sore and she started rubbing them on a rock to massage them. She was starting to feel stifled again, for some reason the nest air no longer felt cozy, but rather felt like a choke on her breathing. She was glad that Nayla had woken her up when she did.

The nest had begun to wake up for the morning. All but the late risers were now up and about their business.

Nayla hadn't come back yet, but Ocean wasn't worried, in fact, she was thinking about her own problems.

"You look bad, Ocean. What's bothering you." said a voice.

It was Stulte. Stulte was her best friend, and her love, though he lived on the other side of the crater. Around the bend as they called it. He was the only one to take notice of her when her mother died, and she felt grateful for his attentions.

For now they had settled into a long distance relationship, though lately Ocean had been feeling something more.

His colors matched Ocean almost perfectly, though his belly was perhaps a little creamier too. His personality felt like a perfect match to hers, and she was almost to the point of knowing what he was going to say before he said it.

He was gentle, kind, smart, and in short all the things Ocean was, maybe a little extra too.

"It's nothing," said Ocean, though she knew that wasn't true.

Stulte sighed.

"I know something is eating you, and I can't stand to see that. I came around the bend to have fun, not sit around feeling sorry for myself."

Ocean considered his offer for a moment, then nodded.

"I've been feeling.. stifled lately. I feel like I want open air and freedom. Freedom!"

"I see. I've been feeling the same way for a few days now." Stulte said, then added, "Freedom to go on the raids or something more?"

"I want something more Stulte," Ocean knew she shouldn't be confessing this to him. After all he still served the Queen. He might report her to the Gronckles or even old dragon Grinch.

"I want to be free just for the sake of being free. No more raids, just us and the wind. The means to carry out our own wishes, our own goals."

Stulte was silent for a bit. After a spot of thinking he spoke up.

"I find that idea strangely attractive. It's like a tug in my veins pulling me away from here, but the Queen's influence is strong in me." he said, then remarked, "I feel like the rope in a game of tug-of-war. It's a bit of a thrill, really."

"I feel like that too."

"We need to talk about some things." said Stulte and Ocean nearly at the same time.

"Uh..You go first." Stulte.

"No, you go first." Ocean.

"I'm pretty sure that you should go first."

"No, you should go first."

"Alright."

Stulte cleared his throat and began.

"I've been thinking through for some time, and I think this might be important."

"What is it?"

Stulte flicked his eyes around the small hole in the dirt they were in to make sure that what they said was for their ears alone.

"I'm thinking that we should fly away from this place."

"And leave your parents hanging?"

"They hardly care about me. They've swallowed the propaganda and I should know. Bomb dropped, now it's your turn."

"I've been thinking about Vikings. They aren't what you think they are. They're not evil or bad, they're just protecting their home."

Stulte was surprised and couldn't hide it well enough. He coughed.

When he spoke his tone was skeptical.

"I don't believe that. They're evil creatures, more evil than the Queen, I dare say. Why do they come and try to invade the nest if not to kill us for the fun of it!"

Ocean subconsciously shifted to distance herself from Stulte.

"Now it sounds like you've fallen for the propaganda. Look at it from their point of view. Dragons are the enemy and they're just trying to get rid of us the only way they know how. They're Vikings, not philosophers. The only reason they're attacking us is because they're being attacked."

"One way or another, it all comes back to the devil on the throne." Stulte said.

"What are you talking about?"

_Nayla, and at the worst possible time too! Drat! She'll turn us in._

"Are you two lovebirds having fun together or is it something else?"

If dragons could blush Ocean would be bright red.

Stulte stammered.

"N-nothing. Heh heh. We were just talking."

"I have an eye for trouble when I see it, you're up to something and I know it."

Ocean had to fight to keep from acting on impulse and telling another lie.

"_As soon as you tell a lie, you'll have to tell more until somebody realizes you're lying and you are dishonored. Better to tell the truth and feel the pain now than experience much more pain later"_

Her father's words came to her and Ocean decided she would take a leap of faith.

"She's a friend, we can trust her." she whispered to Stulte.

Then she said to Nayla.

"Can you keep a secret."

Nayla nodded.

"Cross your heart and hope to die?" said Ocean, who held her hands over her heart.

Nayla didn't hesitate.

"Cross my heart and hope to die." said Nayla, in a firm voice, though she instinctively reached to her chest to make sure that her heart was still beating.

"We're thinking about running away. To the Mainland."

Stulte spluttered.

"We never agreed on that!"

"Shh." whispered Ocean.

"How do I help?"


	3. Loss

**A/N**

**Passage** ** of the day.**

“**_**Dragons steal gold and jewels, you know, from men and elves and dwarves, wherever they can find them; and they guard their plunder as long as they live (which is practically forever, unless they are killed), and never enjoy a brass ring of it. Indeed they hardly know a good bit of work from a bad, though they usually have a good notion of the current market value; and they can't make a thing for themselves, not even mend a little loose scale of their armour.**_****_**”**_**

**-?**

**Really? Nobody bothered to guess at the answer to the last to chapter's riddles? I thought somebody might have come along and done it. I have the utmost confidence in my writing skills... in eighteen chapters.  
**

**Published on AO3 on Monday September 30th, 8:16 AM.**

* * *

It was a cold night, one of the last before winter, yet an unnatural cloud of dense fog floated thickly over the ocean.

A line of dark shapes appeared in the mist. There would be a raid tonight. More appeared, then even more. All told, over fifty dragons broached the fog and headed southwest, to a small island the humans called Berk.

A few minutes passed. The raiding dragons passed out of sight. Two new shapes erupted, this time flying straight east. They were escapees, fugitives of The Red Death.

_Flashback: Two days before Escape._

* * *

“How do I help?” Nayla asked.

“You can cover for us while we’re flying out. After we go you can say I fell sick with eel pox or something. That way we’ll be out of Her reach before She even knows we’re gone.”

“How would we get out?” Nayla looked serious and had abandoned her chirping, baby happy demeanor over night.

“We could sneak out at night. I thought you knew a back way through the nest.”

“I do, but the Guard will be watching.”

“The Guard doesn’t watch the back passage, at least I wouldn’t think they would. I wouldn’t worry. Besides, the longer we wait, the larger the chances of Him coming back.”

“Up to a point.”

“Now hold on a minute!” Stulte cut in. “I never agreed to this. What if we’re noticed! I didn’t really mean to run away and now you guys are acting like I was serious!”

“Were you serious?” Ocean asked the obvious.

“It was an ill thought out idea. I never should of thought to run away in the first place.”

“Then let’s make it into a better idea. I could use some adventure.” said Ocean, then added, “The only real change is brought about by those who are courageous, as my father used to say, and I think he was right.”

“My pranks were getting boring, I could use a spot of derring-do,” said Nayla.

“My question is, are you in or are you not?” said to Stulte.

Stulte had to think long and hard.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

“Good. We’ll need supplies, rope and such, as well as writing material just in case we need to send a letter to your family. You never know how useful parchment is until you don’t have any.” Nayla.

“Letter paper won’t be a problem,” said Nayla, “but the rope is in the storeroom next to Grinch’s cave. Stealing it won’t be easy.”

“I trust you.”

Nayla nodded and ran off, her head full of excitement, and perhaps a bit of doubt. She was very afraid of the Guard and of Grinch. A conversation started itself in her head. It went a little like this.

_It’s probably just a bout of young stupidity like I have every little while. Just a little more daring.What if I don’t follow through with this? Ocean will forget about it in a while. _

_But Ocean said she trusted me, she’s my best friend. _

_The Guard might catch us stealing the rope. I’m scared._

_Don’t be, this is for your friend’s sake._

_We can wait a little longer._

_What was the saying. That you can’t do anything half-way. Get a hold of yourself._

_But what if we get caught, what happens? _

_We won’t get caught._

_How can we be sure?_

Nayla tried to swallow her doubts, but they were making inner turmoil. Nayla elected to get the paper right away and get the rope after her nap, when Grinch would likely be eating his dinner, and not in the mood to chase young rope stealing dragons around the nest. Stealing nest materials was a capital crime that would probably end her freedom or even her life should she be caught.

She directed her steps toward the The Post office, which was halfway ‘round the bend but on the same tier, slowing down to look less suspicious.

At this point in the afternoon most dragons had already eaten and were resting in their craters or their nests, which made normally made them easy to prank.

Manning the counter was Frot, another one of her friends. He was an employee of The Post, at most times preferring a quiet life as a cashier to getting into shenanigans like others his age. At most times.

The station was made of rock, and was actually just a counter set into a barrow that served as a dispatch station. The Queen ruled over more than one island, and sometimes she needed to communicate between them.

Families also used The Post to conduct business and catch up to each other, though the fee was expensive.

“Good afternoon Nayla. Are you mailing another one of your father’s letters today?” he asked in an amused tone.

“I’m actually here for some letter parchment. Could you give me some, I ran out yesterday.”

Frot had to dive under the stone counter because he was too small to reach under it without looking undignified. His answer came out a little muffled.

“How much?”

“Two large rolls, give or take.”

Frot raised his eyebrows, though Nayla couldn’t see it.

“That’s a big amount, even for you.” he said.

“I like to have a bit around all the time.”

Frot snorted.

“That’s still quite a bit of parchment. Do you want some stamps just in case you want to, oh I don’t know, have a bit around all the time?” the last part of his sentence was slow and deliberate.

“Just one roll of stamps please. I have some at home.”

“Two _large_ rolls of parchment and some stamps coming right up.”

Frot put up the paper with no trouble, but they were hanging on the edge of the rock and teetering a little bit, so when one fell off Nayla wasn’t surprised.

Unfortunately it was at this moment that Frot decided to poke his head out to put up the stamps. The heavy (for a Terror) parchment nailed him on the head and caused him to lose grip of the stamps. Frot teetered back and forth on his hind legs for a moment before falling off the shelf.

Frot fell to the ground, on top of his wings.

“Ow.”

The stamps he had let go of returned to the earth with a thump, unfortunately hitting his head in the process.

“Ow!” More high-pitched this time.

He ended his adventure sprawled on the ground on top of his wings, stamps on the ground beside him.

Nayla giggled.

“Here, let me help you.”

She reached over and picked up the parchment that had been the culprit. It crackled as her claw made contact.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

Frot brushed himself off and said from the ground, “That’ll be a silver round and about a brass tack, if I’ve memorized the chart correctly. I’d give it to you for nothing since you’re my friend, but the boss doesn’t like freeloaders.”

“Sure thing. I’ll go get it from my barrow. Be back in five minutes.”

Nayla took off and flew around a few pillars for the fun of it before banking and heading for her parents barrow. She headed around the outside of the cave, as she didn’t like to be over the Queen. The climb took some effort, so Nayla had to take a rest when she reached her doorstep.

It was a large home for a large family, round and cut deep into the mountain. It sat high and near the top of the mountain. Her father had made sure that his family had the second best view in the nest, for not being able to find a barrow by the opening he had made it up for her mother, Skyla, by making his home high above the Queen’s lair and its fumes. It had been expensive, but hard work and diligence had made up for the money he’d lost.

The barrow was divided into three parts; Her parents room was the only private space in the barrow. It was averagely sized and had space for a study, which her father greatly enjoyed.

The drawing room was by far the largest space in the house. It had a mantle with a fireplace under it in the back. Her mother kept it clean as a whistle and did not allow her siblings to play there, though she trusted Nayla to some extent.

Unlike other drawing rooms, it had been chipped out of the rock evenly, so it was relatively boxish. It had plenty of clearance for taller dragons.

Nayla’s room was shared with her eleven baby brothers and sisters. It had multiple ledges for growing dragons to sleep on, which were always messy despite her best efforts.

Her money was in the back of it on a smaller ledge, away from any trampling feet that might spread her things. She had ordered her siblings to stay away from it, but baby dragons don’t listen to anyone. Nayla expected to have to drag at least one of her brothers away from the ledge. Again. That hadn’t been fun.

* * *

Her father was in the study, reading a book she didn’t recognize.

“Here for your nap?” he asked.

“Nope. I was actually out buying some parchment and needed to get my money.”

“That’s a good thing. We’re a little low on that. I really should have been writing that letter to your uncle by now, but I’ve run out of ink. The bottle is down to it’s last dregs I fear.”

“Do you need me to get some?”

“That would be convenient. You can take one of the brass rings from my room to pay for it. They’re too small to fit dragons at any rate, even if they do have some nice engravings on them.”

“No problem.” Nayla said, though inwardly she sighed. She had been hoping to get her shopping over with and take her evening rest.

She turned to go to her room, but stopped when her mother called to her.

“Is Nayla here?”

“She just got home on an errand.” her father said, then added, “Do you want her to get anything while she’s out?”

“An ornament for the mantle would be nice. The drawing room seems a bit bare to me every time I sweep it. I could use some decoration.”

“Can that wait or do I have to do it now?”

“Maybe. But I’d like it before we have your nephews over, that’s for sure.”

Skyla always found a way to bypass her complaints.

She entered her room.

In the center of the room her siblings were having a large playfight. A couple were standing off to her side, but there was no one eyeing her stash this time. Skyla was in the corner keeping an eye on the children while she read.

Nayla had never learned to read, despite her parents best efforts.

Nayla’s “hoard” was only a few coins large. It was rather pitiful, but she planned to save more when she had the time.

She picked out her dingiest silver coin and a shiny glass marble to pay for the parchment.

Nayla hopped over to the study, where she took one of the smaller brass rings for her father’s wishes. She also took the (nearly empty), ink bottle.

“Can I visit my friends before I come back?” An excuse to laze around.

“You can, but you have to be careful.” Skyla.

“I can take care of myself.”

With that Nayla flew off.

The flight down was much easier, and she let herself glide easily down. Her nose wrinkled up when she passed above the Queen’s lair, and she raised her wing to bank.

She landed at the Post in front of Frot.

“Hello again.” said Frot.

“Hello to you.”

She fumbled with her claw a bit before accidentally dropping one of the brass rings on the counter with her marble.

“Sorry.”

“Not a problem.”

Frot handed the ring back to Nayla, who gave him the silver coin back. She then grabbed the parchment and spiked it on her tail.

That was the thing about Nadders. They could easily hang on to things where normal dragons couldn’t.

“My father wants a refill of ink so he can write his letter.”

Nayla showed off the ink bottle on her tail, then looped it over her head and offered it to Frot, who dexterously removed it so as not to cut himself on the poisonous spines.

He took another bottle of ink and gave it to Nayla.

She gave him a brass ring and hopped off the ledge before he could make change. Nayla elected not to go trading just yet. Her mother’s request could wait.

She was tired from waking up so early and took a short rest on the ground, before flying back home for a quick nap.

Or a not so quick nap.

“Dinner time!” Her mother was feeding the children, who were to young to fly.

Nayla groaned. It was time to steal a little rope.

_ But I’m so sleepy! _

_We can sleep later. That is what night-time is for. _

Right now the bold part of her was winning. Nayla decided not to waste that time.

In front of her Skyla was feeding the fledglings, as she did every evening. She was trying to get them into a regular feeding schedule so they wouldn’t wake her up in the night so often.

“Fishing?”

“And having a little fun.”

“Don’t have too much fun.” Skyla said, then, as Nayla pushed off, “Be safe!”

Nayla had no plans of being safe.

The supplies were closely guarded, as it took a normal dragon an hour to weave a foot of rope. Most of it was stolen stuff from the two-leggeds, not very high quality, but valuable none the less. It was used to weave baskets, make repairs, and snare incoming Viking ships.

All of it was conveniently located (for the Queen), near Grinch’s cave, to repell any unwelcome visitors like Nayla.

Nayla flapped down and hid behind a rock, waiting for the Guard to pass.

She was about to make a move, but stopped in her tracks when she heard a voice.

“How much will we need? Make it quick boy.” Grinch. He was in the middle of a conversation.

“The rock clearing mechanism will take our best carvers approximately one change of the moon. We’ll need most of the rope we have for its construction.”

“Then I’ll need it moved, starting tonight after feeding time!” Grinch snapped.

_ Forget about the rope. Our lives first! _

_ Leaving would be impossible without being detected. Press on. _

Nayla’s heart was in her mouth. She stood stock still, adrenaline pumping through her veins and screaming to be let out. She waited for what seemed like an eternity.

A crunching noise came from around the boulder she was hiding behind. She tensed, every old fighting instinct in her coming to life. She fought to control her breathing, so as not to give herself away.

A voice cut through the air, and she stilled the involuntary urge to leap away. It was so close she could nearly touch it.

“Looks like we’ll be haulin’ junk around for the Queen next’ few days. Here I thought I was going to get a break.”

“No kidding. A giant pulley system to save work. Sounds too human if you ask me. Here I almost thought we were the superior kind.”

Nayla’s spines angled back down slightly. They were only construction Gronckles, not guards. She considered running away, but she would have to cross fifty feet of rocky ground in the open before getting out of sight, and even then she wouldn’t be out of danger, so she stayed put. The chance of somebody asking questions was too large.

“Guards runnin’ all over the place, and Grinch watching like a hawk. It’ll be hard to keep our dirty little secret.”

“We can always say we’re gone for lunch break, but we’re really gone for.. other things.”

“Yeah. Grinch’ll never know about _her_.”

A plan began to form in Nayla’s mind.

She stood up and faced the construction workers.

“Do you sneak off often boys?”

The two Gronckles were surprised, and nearly spit out their food. Surprise turned to fear, and fear turned to anger. Most citizens were deadly afraid of stepping out of line.

“None of your business.” one of them said, in the toughest voice he could muster.

“Really. So that means that if I tell your headmaster that you’re up to something, you won’t have a problem with it?”

The workmen’s demeanor changed instantly.

“N-no. We weren’t doing anything. It was just a lunch break. Honest?” said one.

Nayla had them right where she wanted them. In their fear, they hadn’t noticed she was just a fledgling.

“I’ll make you a deal.”

“What kind of a deal?” said the first.

“Oh, nothing,” said Nayla in the most nonchalant voice she could manage. “Just a little rope, and maybe I won’t tell.”

“Rope is valuable. It would be too difficult.”

Nayla made a conspicuous show of turning away.

“We’ll do it!” said both at once.

“Sounds better.” she said. “Meet me outside tomorrow on the big boulder, in the afternoon. I’ll be waiting for you.”

Nayla flew off right in front of the guards. If there was one thing she had learned from her encounter, it was confidence. Look confident, and most people tended to back off. Show fear, and the enemy quickly takes control.

One looked like he was getting ready to fly after her, but he thought better of it. Gronckles were good at keeping public order, but they weren’t built for chasing down criminals.

_ That’s what I am now, a criminal. _

Nayla ignored that thought. She would cross that moral bridge when she came to it. She skirted around the border and flew out the opening to the nest to fish, but her heart wasn’t in it.

The dragon nest was large enough to make an impact on the local fish population, so Nayla had to fly almost three miles out and out of the fog to start seeing a catch. The guards were there as well, though more to keep an eye out for viking ships than to keep in the fishing civilians who might break free of The Queen’s control.

To The Queen nonviolent dragons were little more than minions for the fighters who would raid neighboring human islands to feed Her. She needed more than just cod to keep Herself healthy.

Nayla’s keen eyes spotted a fish school just below the surface.

She dove and prepared to unleash her fire on the hapless fish. Unfortunately another Nadder had had the same idea and was also diving on the future food. Nayla noticed him before he noticed her. It was Carr, Stulte’s elder brother.

Frustrated, she pulled up to avoid a midair collision.

Carr flashed her what he thought was a handsome smile, but while he was distracted he nearly crashed into the water, and barely avoided drowning. Needless to say, his antics scared off the fish.

Nayla rolled her eyes for the first time that day.

Carr was an arrogant dragon who was nothing like Stulte except in appearance. He had inherited his father’s hoard by birthright when the fiery dragon had died in a viking nest hunt. Since then he had become arrogant and abusive to Stulte and his extended family. He was a know-it-all, a showoff and a flirt to every girl he met.

“Hey babe. You look extra shiny today.”

Case in point.

Nayla just flew away without talking to him. The last thing she wanted was to make Carr think she was interested in him. He didn’t take the hint.

“Hey, come back! Me and you would make a great team. We could eat like kings!” his cries faded swiftly as Nayla worked to put distance between him and her.

She ignored him and started looking for another school of fish. The setting sun reflected off the water and made it hard to see anything below the surface. Nayla made a point of squinting her eyes and kept looking.

Her sweeping gaze finally caught a dark shape under the water. Nayla banked and once again prepared her fire.

The fish didn’t see her until it was too late. Her blast caused the water to boil up and throw itself up in the air like an eruption of lava.

Dead cod and mackerel floated up to the surface, a little cooked for her liking, but good eating nonetheless. She swooped down and grabbed a few with her claws, leaving the rest for any scavengers who had had a bad catch.

Carr skimmed above the surface and stole the rest. She hadn’t meant for him to get any, but Carr would be Carr.

“These are nicely done, don’t you think?”

Nayla just ignored him again and flew away faster.

* * *

Nayla came home after dusk to a sleeping barrow.

She walked in and fell asleep in the drawing room. In the back of her a little voice said that mom wouldn’t be happy, but she paid no heed and swiftly fell asleep.

Her dream that night was of happy flight over green forests covering the land; exhaling pungent scent. The pounding of surf was gone, as was the call of the gulls. In their place strange new bird calls floated on the wind and into her ears. A glimmering mountain range unfolded over the edge of the horizon dreamscape. The cool air flowed over brush and stream like a soft whisper. It looked like paradise. It was paradise.

She flew tree to tree with powerful strokes of her wings. She felt so young and strong here, like all of her aches and pains were gone and replaced with power. She roared and whooped and wheeled, until her dream shifted and she fell into a deeper sleep, a sleep which truly rested her.

It felt like no time at all until her eyes lifted, and it was a new day. Nayla got up slowly, feeling refreshed and ready for anything, yet not wanting to forget her wonderful dream.

Strangely Skyla had let her rest, gracious enough not to disturb her, though she had inadvertently slept in the drawing room. The fledglings were not yet awake, and Nayla had the morning hours all to herself.

Nayla looked around and decided on an impulse that she would go check on Ocean to see how she was doing. After that she would take a quick flight, to calm her nerves and get away from the nest, where she had lately been feeling a bit boxed in.

She mouthed a quick goodbye to her sleeping family and took off

Ocean was resting, as usual, and Nayla decided to let her sleep.

The sky looked bright today, and she let herself bask in the breeze for a while. Then she opened her wings and propelled herself into the sky with one wide stroke, gliding under the rising sun.

**A/N **

**Ooh, ** **blackmail****. ** **What will happen next?**

**Comment if you think you know where the story's going, or where these two are going to end up. I've written it all out in advance, so I can't change anything, but your thoughts make me think of how I could have done this differently.**


	4. Intrigue

**Old A/N. I've found that I really should plan my plots in advance! ** **I have a general idea, but nothing rounded enough.**

**I am trying to show, not tell, and the last chapter was an experiment there. I had no idea you could squeeze 4k words out of one day, ** **much less one befo** **re the finale ** **or even the union of both stories** **! ** **What do you think will happen then? Battle it out ** **o** **n the reviews page.**

**Riddle.**

**What's brown and sticky?**

**W** **ritten while listening to castle in the sky. You should really listen to this if you're reading or ** ** w** **riting flying sequences ** **or anything cinematic** **.**

**Published on Monday October 7th, 2019.**

**I'm still serious about that music, after all these years (this chap probably went up in March 2018).**

* * *

Nayla glided down to a barrow and alighted on it easily. A blue-white dragon was sleeping inside.

"Ocean, are you awake?" She would be asleep. Mostly.

A low moan sounded and Ocean turned her head.

"I've got news!"

"What's that? Is it about our escape?" Asked very sleepily.

"Yes. I managed to.."

"Don't bother. This was a stupid idea, from a dumb kid trying to show off." Clearly her friend hadn't rested as well as she had.

"If only it were that easy to just give up now. I've made deals in the wrong places just to get what we needed. I've been a good friend. I too have been feeling boxed in."

"I suppose I wouldn't mind if you decided to run away from your problems."

Nayla chuckled, a laugh which irritated Ocean.

"You ma'am, are running away from your problems by sleeping in." said Nayla in a joking tone, then added more seriously,

"I have a (mostly) intact family here. Why would I run away? You have almost every reason to go."

Ocean groaned again, though this time it was consciously done.

"Don't remind me. What did you do anyway, to say you've made deals in the wrong places? Something dumb? Something Nayla?"

"I kinda sorta blackmailed a few workers into giving me a little rope after the afternoon break today."

Ocean did the dragon equivalent of slapping herself in the face.

"We could of bought that stuff. It's only a matter of time before they spill their guts and we'll be toast. Tell me. Did you 'borrow' some parchment too?"

"I bought that. The rope was being used for a big project, and I'm pretty sure that all the rope-makers will be employed. Even the two-legged's bad imitation won't be available for any but the highest price." said Nayla.

"Might as well pay you back for it." said Ocean, "I'm nothing if not an honorable dragon."

"Not a problem. I want you to have them. The parchment rolls, I mean."

"What would I use it for?"

"Sending letters home silly!"

"I've already told you that this was a dumb idea."

Nayla took a page out of her mother's book and ignored her, chalking it up to morning sickness..

"Do you wanna go flying? It's good exercise, and you'll be able to stretch out." Nayla reverted to her usual self, if only for a second.

"Seeing as I won't get any more sleep, sure. I'm hungry."

Ocean yawned and stood up, thankful that Nayla had changed the subject.

"We can talk about things later. Right now we need to keep your eyes open and your mouth closed."

Nayla couldn't stifle her yawn anymore and opened wide.

"I swear, yawning is contagious."

"No kidding. I think I might have caught it from Stulte."

"Speak of the devil. I met Carr yesterday," said Nayla, "He was being a showoff and nearly crashed into the water trying to impress me."

"I take it that that didn't work." More statement than question.

"Nope."

Ocean stretched her wings and yawned again.

"We'd better get going before this turns into Yawnfest 335." Nayla.

The two took off, Nayla in front and Ocean lagging slightly behind. By now the early risers of the nest were quietly going about their business and Nayla watched as the first turnout started to hum.

Ocean made for the nest exit, but Nayla pulled her away.

"The secret way out. You need to memorize it before you can attempt anything by yourself."

"Are you still trying to suck me into your nefarious plan? Will I get lost and left to die."

"I got lost in that cave once, had a terrible time getting out of there. Wouldn't want anyone to go through that."

Nayla's short response shut Ocean up, and she was content to remain silent as they half glided, half flew toward a crack in the rock that looked just like any other.

As they neared it Nayla pulled her another way, and from this angle she could dimly see that a small opening was there, barely detectable by even a trained eye looking the wrong way.

"Wow. How did you find this place. That little seam doesn't look at all what it did a second ago."

By this time the wall was in their faces and they had to start circling, unable to hover in one place.

"Blind luck, I guess."

"It takes more than that, in my opinion at least."

Nayla ignored the compliment and flew up for a gliding run. Getting into the secret passage was difficult, as it required Ocean to fold her wings up just before she hit the rock, so that she could fit through.

Unsurprisingly Nayla was the first in, dropping twenty feet before gripping the edge and pulling herself in.

"Come on. You can do it." she cheered.

Ocean folded her wings and dove one last time and barely managed to squeeze in, several of her head spines snapping off and being discarded.

It was quite dark in there, at least until Nayla spat out some fire onto the floor, illuminating the cave well enough for Ocean to see.

The sekrit way was much bigger inside then outside, at least twice Nayla's hight, and wide enough for two Nightmares to walk abreast.

It had a musty smell, like old books and rotting wood. Plenty of stones decorated the floor. Ocean somehow managed to stub her toe on three of them before she was even in the proper cave itself.

Multiple paths opened out from the space, which was not quite big enough to be called a cavern.

One went up, the others went down.

Nayla chose the path that sloped up without hesitation, Ocean also stumbling along behind. The fire's light decreased quickly after its initial flair, and the pair were enveloped in the darkness. Ocean had a little trouble seeing, but Nayla had no such problems.

She must be used to this sort of thing, Ocean thought, and she was right. Nayla seemed to be unfazed by the dark, being able to move through it like it was her element.

Ocean was as clumsy as Nayla was graceful in the darkness. She tripped over a stone and landed flat on her face. She quickly got up and tried to brush it off and look dignified, the only problem being that it is no use to look dignified when there is no way to see you at all, so that instead of feeling important, she felt rather foolish.

They passed several forks, but Nayla always chose the left, so that soon Ocean had completely forgotten their orientation. All sense of time had long since passed away, leaving her with a peculiar empty feeling. They could of been higher than the stars by then and she wouldn't have noticed.

Left, right. Left, right. Look down for rocks, follow Nayla, take care of your tail, plod on. Feel the dryness in your throat as you breath hoarsely from the exertion, feel hungry, drift off until you feel like you've hit a wall, rub your nose, rest, rinse and repeat

This went on for what seemed like forever for Ocean. Even Nayla was starting to flag a bit, for she called a rest break for a few minutes. Or was it hours? Ocean couldn't know.

Faintly she could hear the laughter of an untamed stream, and it became noticeably lighter in the cave, so that the walls became grey and not black. Ocean no longer struggled to see Nayla's tail and legs anymore, it seemed like a fog had been lifted from her eyes that she had not even seen before and was gone.

The air had become fresher and more rejuvenating, it held the scent of water and Ocean began to look around for any sign of the stream.

"Are we there yet?"

"No. But we're close." Nayla.

As she turned yet another bend, the light became much stronger. After so much time in the dark it was blindingly bright, a hole in the darkness filled with the power of many suns. At least that's what it felt like to her.

Ocean involuntarily closed her eyes and waited it out. Eventually she opened them a little. It still hurt, but not as much, and soon she was standing out in the grass on top of the largest mountain in the archipelago.

It was the most beautiful place she had ever seen. The waxing sun filtered through pine needles and dappled her scales. A babbling brook ran across the middle of a meadow filled with purple wildflowers. The greenery grew up to a particular line on the ground where none dared cross. An oak tree stood next to the stream, dropping beautiful orange and marigold leaves into the water.

Ocean looked up and saw that an overhang was covering most of the cove from the air at any but the most extreme angles. The Queen must have missed this place when she was flaming the island because the ledge had protected the plants.

She looked down and saw that all the ground sloped up in a circle from the cave entrance to the wall of rock, surrounding it and protecting it from the icy blasts of winter as well as dragon fire.

What she was most surprised by was the time of day. Instead of being evening or even afternoon, it was only late morning. Ocean thought that either she had miscalculated her time in the cave (she had), or she had woken up earlier than she thought she did (she hadn't).

"How is it only midmorning?"

"Welcome to cave travel," said Nayla with a smile. "Consider this your initiation test, which you passed with flying colors. I was a lot more scared when I first came here."

"I had you. You had nobody."

"I suppose you're right. But," Nayla said, looking up at the sun, "I have a little business at the beach. Remember. I'm doing this for you."

With that she flew off, leaving Ocean to consider her words.

* * *

Nayla was in a bit of a pinch. The traitors were supposed to be here any second now, and she couldn't help but start to worry. She had to fight to stop herself from descending into a never ending merry round of what ifs.

_What if they told the guard of your deeds. _

_What if they shortchange you and you fall for it._

_What if.._

On and on and on. She was not surprised at the amount of bad results her mind could come up with, after all she had been in high pressure situations before, so this was not new. Still, it was slightly unnerving whenever it happened. This was one of those times.

The sound of buzzing interrupted her thoughts, making a reprieve against her own head possible. Still, the arrival of the workers in person brought its own problems.

Two Gronckles landed, one of them carrying a frayed coil of viking make. It still looked like it would hold in a storm however.

"We got the goodies, now leave us alone." one of them seemed to be smiling, though Nayla didn't know why. She hoped it wasn't a bad omen.

Nayla made for the coil with a flick of her tail, and cargo secured, began to climb. She hoped that was the last she would see of the troublemakers. She did not trust them.

Her father was in the study again, reading his new book. He greeted her.

"Good afternoon Nayla. I see you have bought some of the rope on sale."

Busted. Might as well go with a half-truth.

"Yes."

"The Queen has a new pulley project going."

Nayla nodded.

"I knew that already."

"Good. I have been looking up economics over the last few days." he said, holding up his book. "And according to the basic laws of economic interests, the moment one is forced to pay heavy taxes on what something owns, one tries to sell it."

"In plain Drohirrim please."

"What I'm saying is that as soon as the Queen ordered all line to be given over to her for free, the merchants sold their wares at extremely decreased prices so all their hard work wouldn't be for nothing."

"And?"

"The current price is down to pennies worth for every ten feet of decent quality."

Nayla had to avoid doing a double take. She had just done the most stupid thing possible. Instead of waiting for another chance she had acted on impulse to get what she wanted. Now she had not one but two people who might charge her with crimes against The Queen, and they had probably gotten what they needed on the cheap. A nice double play.

Nayla cursed herself. Way to go. Could her day get any worse?

She wanted to get away from it all, so she flew to a place just outside Ocean's barrow to think about what she might tell her friend. Just as she was ready to say the worst, Stulte emerged with Ocean in tow.

More bad news?

"Nayla!" Stulte. At least he sounded cheery. "We have some good news for you."

"What is it."

"My family agreed that me and Ocean could be betrothed, but only after a long bit of bugging on my part."

"We're officially together!" added Ocean.

Nayla was stunned. She'd known their relationship was deep, but not as deep as that. Still, she had known that Stulte had been Ocean's best buddy for years now, and something like this was inevitable. Just not so soon.

"We've also agreed that we'll stay on the island. No more of this silly running away stuff."

Nayla just sat, wallowing in her own silence. Unfortunately things had just gotten worse. Fortunately her preparations would bid well in the end. The end was not now.

* * *

Nayla sat watching Ocean and Stulte enjoying a moment watching the sun set over the island from the big boulder. She had always wished that someday she would enjoy a moment just like this, just that if they got all mushy she would leave..

Sometimes the mist would part to reveal particularly nice weather. This was one of those times.

"The water looks golden tonight. I wish it could stay this way all year." said Stulte.

"That's just not the way the world works. Everything has a place. Some things must die that others may live. Summer is one of those things."

"We must be glad that it comes alive again then, or we would be stuck in eternal winter like that of the Bewilderbeast's."

"That's just a story, and a made up one at that."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

Nayla turned to leave. She couldn't stand much more of that before her bubble popped.

She stopped when she heard the whoosh of many dragons landing all at once.

"You are under arrest for High Treason to Her Majesty!"

Her day had gotten infinitely worse.

* * *

**A/N:  
**

**Berk is having nice weather today.**


	5. No Guts? No Glory.

**A/N:**

**Quote of the day.**

“_**Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.”**_

–**?**

**Answer it and there will be cookies. People have fallen to the dark side for cookies!   
**

* * *

Ocean looked bleakly out of the guarded cell. She was locked in and waiting for the interrogator that was sure to come.

Her cell was wet and sticky. She had been mostly left alone from the moment she was dumped in. Other than the person who gave the food, a ragged slimy excuse that passed for fish, she’d had no dragon contact. And it was driving her crazy.

There was only one person who could have been responsible for all of this mess. Nayla had screwed up. Damn her!

She was the one responsible for the whole business, and she knew it. Ocean should never have trusted the budding criminal to do anything right.

The two construction workers had tattled on her and this was the result. If only Nayla could be mature and not do dumb things. Add that to the fact that she was nowhere to be found, and you got yourself a very angry dragon.

The first thing she would do when she got out was hunt her down herself. No mercy would be given her former friend. It was a passing rage but she still indulged in it nonetheless.

The guards had made it clear to her that she was suspected of helping someone steal something. A very specific someone. She would be questioned about it, and maybe convince them she wasn’t guilty, but the nest always had more dragons if she was gone.

In The Queen’s lair, one mistake could get you killed. Literally. And it was all her fault!

Ocean stopped in the middle of her mental rant and roared at the ceiling with a vengeance.

She did things on her whim, and if She decided that Ocean was to be eaten, that was it. But also mixed in with her anger was the pang of guilt in her stomach, a pulling at her gut that just didn’t seem to go away.

She was the one who’d talked her friend into this, and she was partially responsible for her present circumstances. Ocean couldn’t tell that to anyone though, for they’d report her involvement to Grinch, who was not happy that someone had managed to slip through their guards. In fact, that slippery someone was out there now.

As for Stulte, she had no idea where he was. He would be shocked and would never look at her again, or so she thought.

And now for punishment she might be subjected to the same fate that had befell her mother all those years ago.

* * *

Stulte was actually worried sick. He couldn’t believe that his betrothed could actually have done what the guards accused. He had tried to talk to her multiple times to get the truth. Each time the guards had pushed him away. Now he was frustrated and running out of choices.

So he turned to another option, Nayla. Surely she must know what had happened, she was Ocean’s best friend after all.

Tracking her down was harder than he’d thought, for Nayla had disappeared overnight in the nest community. The last time she had been seen was around one of her favorite cliff haunts on the back side of the island.

His family had shook their heads over the entire affair and told Stulte to keep away from Ocean if he valued his life. How could he, when Ocean was the love of his life. Now it seemed the entire nest was against them.

Tales of young love swept through the ranks like wildfire, and Stulte was pretty sure that they were about him. Gossip and scuttlebutt was never to be trusted, and this was no exception. The newest rumors were that he had run away on a giant machine with Ocean and that they had eloped to the nearest island, where Ocean had been captured and that Stulte was back to gain his revenge.

Carr was being an ass about it, of course, but since when was he not being an ass? He would take down his boastful elder in a duel someday, just not yet.

Stulte had smelled Nayla’s faint scent a while ago and was now flying toward it in hopes of finding a lead.

Stulte sniffed again. A very peculiar scent was drifting down to his nostrils. Ocean’s scent was now intermingled with Nayla’s, though it smelled rather sweaty, like she had gone through some sort of hard exercise. There was also a dry musty smell mixed in with theirs, like that in an old pirates cave. They had obviously been traveling, but where?

He flew upwind, the current taking him to a place he had never seen before. A small valley was carved into the Queen’s mountain where the afternoon wind rushed down and formed crevices. The wind was gusty and unstable here, so it was hard for him to close the distance.

After some time of being buffeted by the winds Stulte had drawn close enough to make out a stream crossing the inside of the valley.

The smell of plants grew strong in his mind. Obviously some plant life was regrowing on the mountain. He dearly hoped that no one would take a pass at the vegetation. He was rather fond of flowers himself.

Nayla’s scent also grew much stronger, and it smelled like she was close. Unfortunately the passing breezes and gusts were too unreliable to tell him exactly where she was.

A passing breeze told him that he was nearing Nayla’s hiding place, but he just couldn’t find it. Then he spotted a glint of green coming from upstream under what he’d previously thought was just another rock field.

He turned to get close, but a downdraft bumped his right wing enough to make him lose his balance. Stulte was losing his patience, and flapped his left wing hard to compensate. That was not the best thing to do.

At the same time his right wing came up and he overbalanced hard.

Stulte smashed into the cove, missing the lip of the overhang by a hairs breadth. He heard the snap of a stick above him and Nayla’s face hovered over his own.

“Is Ocean alright?” her voice sounded strained.

“She’s fine. They let me go.”

“We have to help her.”

“We can’t. She’s supposed to be a criminal accomplice.”

Nayla hung her head, to Stulte’s great surprise.

“I did this.” she murmured so quietly that Stulte didn’t hear.

“What’d you say?”

“I did this.” she said. “It’s all my fault that this is happening.”

“What are you talking about? It can’t be your fault, don’t be so glum.”

“I thought we could have an adventure Stulte. Have a little fun for a while. Be free from The Tyrant.” she said through sobs. “Don’t you see. I did something stupid without thinking. I stole the rope and now I’m a fugitive!”

“Well that certainly changes things.”

“Now I’ll really have to run away. And it won’t be an adventure either. I don’t want to leave Ocean behind, even though she probably hates me.”

Stulte nodded. He had heard the piercing shriek earlier that day, and she didn’t sound happy to say the least.  
“The least we can do is help her out of this mess.”

Stulte saw a grin make it’s way onto Nayla’s face.

“Just don’t do anything stupid!”

Too late.

* * *

A figure skulked around the shadows in the fading light of the sun. It took a look a fleeting look around, hunting for something.

Presently it found a barrel of fish, which it slipped a small packet into. It did the same for all the other barrels.

The dinner call rang throughout the island; the dragon shifted and was gone like it was never there. No-one saw it, but one other.

Soon after dinner all of the guards drifted off, one after another. The dark shape showed itself once more, this time with an accomplice.

* * *

Ocean heard the pitter-patter of footsteps ringing across her prison. She prepared herself for the worst, but was surprised when Nayla showed up. Or maybe that was an understatement.

“You.” Nayla didn’t like her tone.

“I’ve messed up royally,” that was an understatement, “but I’ve come to make things right.”

She pulled out a key and began to unlock the door.

Ocean had a million things to say to her friend, none of them good. After all she had abandoned her and gotten her into trouble in the first place.

But she couldn’t do it.  She couldn’t yell at the one person who had come back. Where Stulte was she didn’t know. 

By coming back, Nayla had proved she was a true friend.

“Thank you.” was all she could manage.

“You’re welcome. Goodness knows I’ve caused you enough trouble.”

Ocean and Nayla exchanged greetings while her  friend’s shadowy partner looked on. Finally Ocean got down to brass tacks.

“If anyone knows I’ve gone they’ll come looking for me.”

“No one will know for a while. There’s going to be a raid tonight and everyone will be celebrating over yet another blow to the viking scum. Besides, we drugged the guards.”

“Oh. But Stulte might be in danger.” she added.

“I’ll come with you.” The last voice she had expected. The shadowy partner was no other than her betrothed.

“Stulte! I thought you’d never come back.” she yelled.

“Hush, not so loud. I’m glad to see you too, but we can save it until we’re not in danger of some knight -errant wandering over and blowing our cover.”

Ocean was crying tears of joy, though she was hiding it well.

“We’re your best friends. Don’t you forget that.” added Nayla.

“Where will we go?”

“Somewhere off the island. Preferably far, far away until this whole thing blows over. The mainland or something. Not in the archipelago I hope.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine. They don’t call me Nayla the slippery for nothing.”

Ocean started running around the inside  of the small prison to stretch her legs. You never knew what freedom  truly meant until it was taken away from you, she thought.

Oddly enough it was empty of any but her and her friends. It seemed like She was not a fan of anything short of corporal punishment or torture, for several chains were in the corner, hung above thousands of little needles.

“The supplies which have given us so much trouble are on Stulte. He’ll know the way.” 

“I can’t hate you enough one moment, and I can’t thank you enough the next. What a weird world.”

“We have no time for dawdling. You can thank me if you get back.”

“_When _we get back.”

Nayla led the two out of the prison and onto the rock above.  The red miasma drew into her lungs and started to close in on her breathing. Ocean could of sworn she was being choked by an unseen hand.

“You’ll need to take the sekrit way out. Someone would surely see you if you went out the front gate. It’s too late for that and it would look suspicious.”

“What if we just said we’re waiting for the guys coming home from the raid? Then we could fly straight out the gate and never look back.”

“And a Gronckle is stealthy,” Nayla shot back. “The most well known prisoner on dragon island waltzes out the front door and nobody notices. I care too much about your safety to let you do that.”

“Hold it in guys. Nayla’s right. We shouldn’t try anything that risky.” said Stulte. “Where is the sekrit way is what I’d like to know.

“Up by the east wall. It’ll lead you to the cove we were in earlier.”

“It’s very…. Interestingly scented if you ask me.” Ocean said.

“Nuff bickering. We need to move before these guards wake up and wander what’s happened.” Stulte. She wasn’t betrothed to him for nothing. He had an honed mind (most of the time), and a voice that could break up conflict. 

They looked around to see if there was anyone around to see them go. There wasn’t.

Nayla took off first, with Ocean following. Stulte hesitated for a second, then chased after them. 

The crack in the wall looked just like any other, and it took even Nayla a second before she found it.

Ocean dived in. Another look around the place revealed it had not changed at all, save for a few more chars on the floor where Nayla had likely lit more fire.

Stulte couldn’t easily fit through the hole behind her, so she turned around and gave him a hand, er, claw.

Once in Stulte took a quick sniff, and that was all he needed to know.

“It’s nice to know that the air down here is this refreshing.” Sarcasm.

“Oh do come on. I can practically smell your sarcasm” said Ocean.

“Sometimes during a storm the air down here will clear up a bit.” said Nayla as she led them to the right entrance.

“Or not. It depends.”

“When do you think that my unscheduled absence will be noticed.” said Ocean when they had got to the first bend.

“In about half an hour or so, maybe less.”

“Will we be out of reach by then.”

“There’s no way to tell for sure.”

“All we can do is hope.” said Stulte.

They climbed on in silence for a while, their footfalls echoing uncannily from the  rock and back to their ears. 

Once again it was completely dark, and even Nayla strained her eyes to make sure that they were not going off the beaten path.  Dim m arkings adorned each stretch of the cave on the right  claw side . They were location markers of some sort, guessed Ocean, who had not noticed them the first time around.

“It sounds like there’s more to this cave than the eye.” said Stulte, still unacquainted with cave travel.

“It sounds like there’s more to this cave than the eye.” mocked the echoes, which were making themselves busy by repeating each other until eventually they died out for good.

“There are quite a few forks on the path.” said Nayla softly, to avoid making an echo. “If you get lost, always turn left.”

They kept on climbing for what seemed forever, but Nayla did not stop.  They reached a few forks in the road, but Nayla unerringly chose left.

“We have to be quick.” She had said.

Stulte bumped his toe on a rock. He walked into a wall. He got thirsty, hungry, and tired. How long had they been down here for?  Where were they even? His feet dragged more with every step, and so did Ocean’s.  Aching pains shot through his leg whenever he stepped on a pebble.

He began dreaming about the end of his journey. What he would do when it was all over. What was at the top. He failed to watch his step and banged his nose on the wall, hard, for the second time that evening. He could barely smell with it anymore.

Nadders were not built for prolonged ground travel, and his feet were letting him know it. The air grew fresher  as they went on,  indicating that at least they weren’t going nowhere, though that wasn’t much comfort, as he didn’t know where ‘there’, was .

Some of the bookish scent still remained though, clinging to his scales like mud on bird’s wings.

He felt like he was about to fall down with every step he took. Thankfully Ocean supported him on her spiny shoulder and kept him afloat for a few more minutes until finally they took a break and all flopped down onto the blasted rock for a while.

Even though he been walking for hours he couldn’t resist the urge to  move his legs.

“Are we there yet?” he just had to ask the age old question.

“No.”

“Are we even close.” he asked as he lifted his wings, rubbing Nayla the wrong way.

“We’re about two thirds of the way.” said Nayla. “We’ve still got a good bit to go.” she grinned, though no one could see it in the black miserableness that was their world.

He groaned audibly  and kept on stretching.

After a few minutes they resumed their climb. This time Stulte took much less time picking through the stones. It was as if he could feel that he was nearing the end of this thrice-blasted cave. His tired bones tinged with a feeling with excitement and he felt jittery.

He could dimly hear the bubbling and gurgling of a stream, though the echoes made it hard to tell if I came from their destination or from inside the cave.

They turned a corner and he could see more light than before. The walls of the cave turned from black to dark grey, and some color returned to the cave walls, both from a bit of moss on the left wall and from the cones in his eyes finally taking in enough light to distinguish tones.

The very air was lighter, so light that he was panting easily, even though they had slowed their pace. It was a moonless night, yet still he had spent so much time in the cave that he could now see everything like broad daylight.

Suddenly he smacked into Ocean, who had stopped right in front of him. In his daze he had not noticed that they were in the cove he had met Nayla in, looking over the northern sky, which was overcast. Typical.

The sound of cheering and the beat of wings could be heard from the right, even though they were in a small valley.

“That’s the raid dragons going out.” said Nayla. “You should get going before they come back.”

“You’ll be coming with us, right?” said Ocean.

“No thank you. I can handle myself. You’ll have Stulte along with you though.”

It was at that moment that Stulte felt a bit sick to the stomach. The thought of leaving his uncles and aunts behind troubled him. He had lived with them almost all his life after his parents were killed.

The only consolation to leaving his family was that he was leaving Carr behind. He had Ocean now, and they could start a new family soon. They were old enough.

But this was all part of the plan. Besides, it was too late to back down now. He was going to be a hunted dragon soon, so the faster they left, the better.

Ocean looked  sad too. Her best friend was going to stay behind.

“Can you please come with us.” she said, using her best cute look.

Nayla was torn between staying behind, and going with them. Eventually she shrugged her shoulders.

“I’d just hinder you in your journey. It is fall, and if you don’t make it to the mainland before winter falls you’ll be in serious trouble. I can’t handle romance at any rate, which I know you two would be doing plenty of.”

“You won’t come?”

“I don’t think so Ocean.” she said, voice full of emotion. She appeared to lighten up however, and added, Besides, who’d keep the guards occupied if I left?”

After many thank you’s and goodbyes, and yet more sorrowful hugs, Ocean said it was time to go. She slowly, carefully, she lifted off, as if trying to capture Nayla’s face in her mind for all eternity. Stulte followed, quickly taking the lead.

Nayla watched the little black dots that were her only friends disappear into the grey sky. She kept watching even after that,  as if wanting to make a move but not  able to, frozen like a statue forever . 

Finally she ducked back into the cave to avoid any seeing eyes.

She wondered if she had made the wrong choice by not going  with them. Not for the last time.

* * *

Ocean pounded on with her wings, finally free.

They had headed east until dawn, and were now looking for a place to land. She wondered if she had made the right choice by letting Nayla stay behind. Not for the last time.

“Land ho.” shouted Stulte.

They both lifted their wings and dropped altitude. The islet Stulte had found was small, but it had a few gulls who had started massing to go south.

She caught a few and ate them raw.

“I’ve found a little cave in the rocks by the sea,” said Stulte. “It’s not a proper barrow, but it’ll do.”

Ocean nodded. She was very tired from flying all night. They would find more food later, but now only sleep mattered. They huddled into the crack and slept soundly, with Ocean leaning her head on Stulte’s chest.

* * *

**A/N.  
**

**This has been B. Avar and I’m happy for you all.**

**Published on AO3 Monday October 14th, 2019.**


	6. Coming Home

**A/N Some reviews would be nice. Pretty please?**

**Moving on, let’s get to today’s riddle.**

“**Tear one off and scratch my head, and what was red becomes black instead.”**

**Winner gets a victory cookie.**

**Updated 2.** **9.** **2019: Published on AO3 10.21.2019.  
**

* * *

Gobber leaned on the side of the boat, washed by a salty breeze and moistened by the ocean spray. Strange, he thought, how the water could change so quickly. Only last night the seas had been twenty yards high, enough to throw a small boat like this around like a top. Now the air was calm and the surface seemed almost like glass, rippling in the wake of the knarr*. Here and there smaller ripples formed, driven by the breeze, but they too faded away.

Fifty yards to port a boulder emerged from the mist as a dark mass, then disappeared just as suddenly.

“Right tiller. Steady as she goes,” called the helmsman.

The deck tilted under his feet as Gobber watched the rocks, looking for a clue, any clue that they were alive.

Footsteps came from amidships; a man walking up behind him. He knew who it was, but didn’t turn, only watched the ocean outboard as if his gaze could somehow strip away the mist.

Screech joined him at the railing.

They were lucky to be alive, and they knew it. If that fisherman hadn’t saved them they would’ve died, and then it wouldn’t have been just Hiccup and Astrid that would’ve been missing, it would’ve been the whole crew.

At home people would wonder where Gobber was, and Screech, and Phlegma, and all the others on this ship. Killed by a dragon, perhaps, or drowned in a storm. But they _had _been saved, and now it was only those kids that were gone. Somehow that didn’t make him feel any better. 

“Our lookouts say they heard a dragon’s cry off the starboard bow,” said Screech, not bothering with the sir. It didn’t feel right to use it any more. “We don’t have many weapons among the men. Most had to ditch them to get to safety.”

“Keep quiet and make sure they keep their eyes peeled. We don’ want ta’ attract it’s attention now, not with the state we’re in.”

Screech nodded, asked hesitantly, “Is there any chance we’ll call off the search today? Some of us are getting restless for home, the captain especially so.”

“I know what goes on in my crew,” said Gobber. “One more day, and then tell him to set course for Berk. We’re closer to there than the Isle of the Meatheads, at any rate. Did he say how much he’ll charge?”

“No, but he doesn’t strike me as the sort of man to miss out on a deal, even if it’s one-sided. Besides, once we get to Berk there won’t be enough time to sail back to his tribe. He’ll have to overwinter with us, and that has a great cost.”

“Judging from tha fact that he has a son, he probly’ won’t be all that happy ta’ be away from family for tha’ long, let alone an entire winter. Stoick’s going ta’ be paying a heavy boon for our rescue, I’ll bet, and he won’t be all that happy about it.”

“Hell, his wife’s gonna be furious when he gets home,” said Screech. “Where’ve you been all winter, you big oaf!”

Gobber chuckled. “I didn’t judge him for a married man, but tha’s an insult.”

“Didn’t you see his boy? If you gave him more meat on his bones and made him an inch taller they’d look alike as two peas in a pod.”

“Naw. I think his nose is too straight for tha’, and besides, he’s got a better set o’ teeth.”

They laughed and talked for a while, until Screech had to go below decks and Gobber had to clean all the rust off his metal limbs. Saltwater isn’t kind to iron as a general rule, and his engineered hand was no exception. His pegleg had hit something in the storm and cracked, and there wasn’t wood to make another one until they got home.

Their ship had been stranded on the shoals, impaled by a boulder that was barely keeping the water out. All hope of getting off the rocks intact was literally blown away when a bad gust had taken off the mainmast. After that they had just tried to hold on and not be thrown overboard to be dashed on the rocks or die of frostbite. Even their gig had been taken by a crashing wave that nearly swept him overboard.

About an hour later they stopped trying to even patch the hole in the hull. It was just too full of water. They all crowded out of the hold and waited for their inevitable doom to come. Every one of them holding their weapons, one by one they said their prayers and waited for the end, murmuring prayers to the gods for a miracle.

They had watched helplessly as the deck had begun to sink below the waterline. Suddenly there was a cry. They were saved.

The hull of a small longship nosed through the storm, one man at the helm and another at the bows. He saw them and waved. They waved back.

Waves pushed and pulled at the ship, and nearly succeeded in tipping it over and dumping the men off. Gobber’s heart was in his mouth, and he had been sure that every one else’s had been too. They watched as a sea rolled over the boat, and it looked like it had foundered, but it rode the crest of the next sea, and the next, steadily getting closer.

In this kind of weather avoiding rocks was simply a matter of luck when you were in the very shoal itself, a game against chance that even the most inveterate gambler would be hard-pressed to even play, let alone win.

A trough in one of the whitecaps revealed a sharp and nasty looking boulder. Suddenly the boat had come over the crest of the wave and they watched in horror as it was bodily sucked into the dip. It seemed destined to smash itself into matchwood. Just as the hull was about to break on it, a sea had scooped the ship up and lifted it bodily over the shoal. It landed with a slap. They would be lucky if nothing had been broken. But strangely it was held back by some unseen force. The net! It had caught on the rock and was holding the ship back. Now it was threatening to turn the ship into wooden noodles with an added helping of Viking sauce.

The ship was steadily being pulled back into the Maelstrom. One of the men started to mess with something. He looked like he was struggling with the ropes that held the net. A knife flashed dully in the torrent, chewing through one of them. He moved to the other end of the net, quickly now, as the ship was beginning to thrash about. The knife flashed again as a wave crashed over it’s bows. The brave viking barely managed to hold on, and now the ship was turning broadside to the wind from the pull of the net. Finally he cut free the ship , and one of the larger fishing nets fell clear of his ship.

It was obvious that he was trying to avoid getting entangled again, as he quickly made double secure all the equipment while the other steered the boat at the marooned Berkians once more.

To Gobber it seemed that it was pointed straight at him, bobbing up and down like a large piece of cork.

Now they pulled aside the stricken longship_. _A line was thrown across the gap between the two, and Phlegma tried to make it fast. But long hours in the storm had made her fingers no better than sausages. The line slipped away and was pulled back. 

It was thrown again. The man  at the tiller let go for one second, and was knocked back from it. The ship opened the distance all on it’s own, making the second throw fall far short. 

The helmsman had picked himself back up now and once again the ship came closer to them. It looked like it was sliding down a wave onto them, only to be stopped by a trough.

The tiller held steady now, and the third throw was successful. One of the crewmen grabbed it and fastened it to the door of the hold, as they had nothing else to attach it to. The job took him far more time then if his fingers had not been numb. They all lined up, holding the rope fast while their sailor made the knot.

On the other ship the sailor also looked like he was securing his end as well. Once he was done he gave three tugs on the rope.

They hauled him in closer. Now the ships were so close that there was a real fear of them smashing into each other, or worse, the rescuer getting stuck on the shoal.

A sea smashed into the back side of their ship, and suddenly, that looked like a real possibility.

But the crew held on to whatever they could find, and soon the gangplank on the rescuing ship was down. It took a few more minutes for a lull in the storm to come, and they all chanced it. None fell off on the perilous tightwalk. 

The rope was cut and the helmsman, pulled away. The younger man happened to be the old man’s son, and he helped them into the hold, away from the prying sleet.

Not a minute afterward a freak wave overturned their tiny longship and threw it into the sky. It came back down with a crash on the partially submerged shoal, and planks, nails and everything else that made up a ship was spewed into the sea, carried away by the tsunami.

They were all extremely, ridiculously lucky to be in one piece.

All except Astrid and Hiccup. Their chances were slim, and they might as well be dead. Gobber’s best apprentice was gone, swallowed by the waves. Gobber scanned the waves for any trace of their bodies, and murmured a prayer to Thor, god of thunder.

_Stop being so fatalistic. They might still be alive, _ Gobber thought to himself.

He was sure that others were also praying for the teen’s fate, though he knew not where they were.

They were running a little late before the winter ice hit, and it would be a close call over whether they made it home or not.

Every day the cold was a little more biting, the frost holding the men’s axes and jamming their war chests a little more severe. Every day the chance of his apprentice’s survival more slim.

“Melec!”

“Yeh? What ye want? Spit it out now.” Gobber did not like his attitude, but it would have to be tolerated, for the moment.

“I see yeh have a boat over there.” Gobber jerked a thumb towards the lashed vessel tied upright on the rail, so as to make space for the extra vikings. “I might need it.”

“What are you gonna use it for? My boat is old, and it might fall apart at any moment now. It’s been in my family forever. Since my grandfather even.”

“To look for someone.”

“Overboard?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“My apprentice and Astrid were thrown off the boat when we hit that rock. Can we use it? The boat, I mean.”

Melec took a look at the darkened sky above him, then nodded.

“Looks like we might actually get some sun today.” joked Gobber.

“Nothing particularly bad today.” said Melec, still craning his neck to look above him. “You can use me boat. But remember, it’s my boat that I’m lending to you. Got it?”

“We’ll take care of it.” said Gobber, containing his answer so that none of his indignance would slip through. The sheer impudence of this man and this son of his! With him outnumbered twenty to one he still managed to put up a brave fight. Gobber had to give it to him. He may have been only a fisherman, but he was still a true viking.

“Screech. Round up a few sailors.”

“Sure. What for?”

“We’re going to find Hiccup. In a boat.” Gobber had to keep a glimmer of hope alive in their hearts. His words were more for himself then for his men.

“Aye. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

Screech found an idle man within minutes.

“I’m going too Gobber.” said a deep voice, though still a woman’s. It was Phlegma.

“Really?”

“Someone has to watch your back. There’s nothing better to do anyway and I might even get to chew out Astrid for being foolish.”

“Alright.” Gobber trusted Phlegma, who had saved his life multiple times. Hell, everyone had saved everyone else’s lives, and were saved in turn. What was that saying? It takes a village? Certainly true.

Melec hove to,  slowing down so they could release the boat.  They all piled in  (making sure the compass and nav chart were there) and the remaining vikings lowered them evenly to the water, not an easy task without a pulley. 

Melec’s ’ son lost balance suddenly, causing the gunwhale  of the boat to dip alarmingly. 

Gobber  took it cooly , and so did Phlegma, but the rower was surprised and jerked the ropes, unsettling the craft.

“Be careful lad!” shouted Gobber as the boat started to tip. It might overturn if they weren’t careful. Gobber and Phlegma leaned to the opposite side of the tilt. It was good, but not good enough. The tilt became even more extreme.

The vikings decided to cut their losses and unceremoniously dropped the mooring lines,  abandoning the boat to the tender mercy of gravity.

The boat hit the water with a large splash, and as if to make the day even worse, promptly started leaking. Melec was not lying when he had said that it was falling apart. 

One man started rowing.  Another settled aft while Gobber stood up on the gunwhales  and directed.

Gobber had the aft lookout start bailing water while he found a way to caulk it. Finally he found some disgusting old tar and patched the hole.

“We’re going to try and find Hiccup and Astrid,” said Gobber. “Hopefully they’ve found a rock or island and lit a fire to guide us in. If not, use your eyes. Scan the water as well as the land.”

They lowered the boat on the ropes, and it hit the water with a slap. Spray flashed up and hit Melec in the face, but he didn’t mind it and continued to  hold back the ship. 

“If I’m not back by nightfall leave without me!” yelled Gobber.

The vikings all nodded. They knew only too well what could happen to a small boat  in the sea . Still, some fidgeted uneasily at the thought of leaving him behind. 

Soon they pushed off, and the paddles were dipping in the water as Gobber’s face was struck with a small breeze.

Gobber pointed to a small crag in front of them that was part of a larger circle  of dangerous shoals .

“We search that for any trace of them, or,” Gobber didn’t like to say it, “their bodies. After that we’ll circle around and search that small islet over there. 

The crew all instinctively looked over at the thing he was pointing at, even if he was pointing at water. Gobber waited as his men  (and women) all frantically tried to spot the island. 

“Got yeh! The islet’s over here.” He pointed the true direction, on the other side of the ship.

“We’ll get to that one later. For now, keep yer eyes peeled.”

The crag they inspected was almost completely devoid of life, except for some seagulls, who were busy pooping all over them. No sign or trace of Hiccup, blood or other sign. 

An accursed current kept driving the boat away from it’s targets, taking them northeast and away from any visible land.

If Astrid and Hiccup had been caught in that, they would have been swept out to sea, and with no reference point they would of died of the cold within minutes flat. Then their body’s would be lost forever, and no one would know their fate  but the killer whales. 

Gobber shuddered at the thought, and  ushered the boat  on .

The rock that they were visiting also had more gulls and dried gull poop, but no Hiccup, and no Astrid.

At least  they wouldn’t run out of food or fuel to cook  with , thought Gobber,  ordering the rower to make for another  spike in the water .

This one was relatively untouched by the birds, as it was about the size of a living room. Gobber wasn’t taking any risks, so they made a circle around it, still hindered by that nagging current, and then, finding nothing, they left.

The results were the same each time. There was nobody on the shoals, and there hadn’t been for a very long time, if indeed the crags had even felt the step of man’s boot. These excuses for  islands were unpopulated, and would be until Ragnarok.

The small islet floating in the waves had some grass on it, but was otherwise bare.  They rowed smoothly in, everyone being pushed forward in their seats slightly when they made landfall. 

They were on a small beach surrounded by five foot drops from the rest of the island. To get inland they would have to do a little rock climbing.

Gobber got out and  tied the mooring lines to a nearby rock.  Phlegma came with him, giving the island an inquisitive look, like she was measuring it and c oming up wanting.

Leaving only the lad to take care of the boat. Hopefully without it sinking. Hopefully.

At this point they were far enough from the ship that it would be hard to raise their attention without trouble.

The island was stripped of any vegetation except for grass and a few bramble bushes.

After poking around in the crevices lit by the afternoon light, Gobber had seen nothing bigger than a lone Nadder’s tracks, and they were old, the dragon only there for a respite and then having left.

Gobber felt the ocean breeze grow stronger.  He looked up and saw the waters in turmoil. Without a word he signaled Phlegma to follow them. 

She nodded and trotted across the island from where they were on the other side. The jump down wasn’t hard, though it took a little guts. Gobber’s pegleg made it down without any problems, though it grumbled a bit. He would fix that in Berk later. Right now they needed to get back to the ship before the deadline he had set for himself.

They made it back fine, if you discount their wet bottoms. The boat however, not so much.

It was leaking again in the bows now, and had soaked their tunics to a tee. Gobber was not so pumped about that, especially now that winter was approaching.

When the men saw that Gobber was returning without anyone extra  t hey  all mouthed a silent ‘O’ and went back to their business. 

No mishaps occurred when they were pulled back topside and they all shuffled inside to take a break, the rower most of all. Gobber saw that the young lad had much spirit, and endeavored to save it before it was all crushed out of him.

He walked over and attempted to strike up a conversation over the sounds of the ship’ s crew getting underway.  A hand tapped his shoulder for what felt like the thousandth time.

“Yes?” he asked without looking back. It was Melec, he could feel it.

“About Berk.”

“You want payment to ship us there.”

“It was not in my plan to go there. So, yes.” Another headache to deal with. The talk with the lad would have to wait. Gobber knew that boy’s moods, having trained him himself, he could afford to wait a minute for business matters.

“How much?”

“It’s not how much. It’s just that I have a family that’ll worry if I disappeared over the winter.” he leaned in uncomfortably.

“It isn’t too late to go back.”

“But that would be a risk.”

“And you want to be paid over risk.”

“Time is money as they say. The more time we spend here, the less time we’re going to have. I don’t think your apprentice is alive anyway.” he said, as he pulled his face back, evidently to avoid the coming punch that Gobber so desperately wanted to give him.

Gobber held back though, for the rules of hospitality deemed that he and his crew were Melec’s guest, and to wound him was to call his honor into question. So he just gave Melec the stink eye and walked over to the rower.

“Good afternoon Gobber.” he said. His name was Wulf.

“You looked like you were a little down.” Indeed. Wulf had been sitting in his little corner ever since they’d gotten back.

“I’ll be alright.”

“Good. I admire your fighting spirit. You’ll be an important man someday Wulf, just you wait.”

With that Gobber left Wulf to his own designs. His pegleg grumbled as he stood up and left, his mind only slightly soothed…..

o-o-0-o-o-o-0-o-o-o-0-o-o-o-0-o-o-o-0-o-o-o-0-o-o-o-0-o-o-o-0-o-o

The horn above Berk blasted three times. Stoick strode onto the dock, not minding the snow already near six inches deep and accumulating. The horizon looked bleak, and he scanned twice before spotting  the dark silhouette of the approaching ship in the storm.

A single foreign freighter was busy rounding the coast and coming in to land. It stumbled along, bumbling at it’s own pace, but Stoick could be patient, sometimes. As he watched it bumped a few ice floes that had fallen off the sea stacks. Soon the vessel drew close enough that he could discern several figures.

On the deck were many men. Men who looked mighty familiar, but he couldn’t be sure. He stood still no longer, but turned and shouted, “Prepare the mead hall. We will have guests tonight.”

Several of the young men pushed their way out of the growing crowd and ran off to tell the cooks of their guests. Some of the cooks were already preparing a feast. They weren’t stupid. Three horn blasts was all it took to get the fires fanned and blazing, the meat a roasting, and the stomachs a hungering.

Most of the men on the ship were rowing, so as to get to a warm house as soon as possible. They were now close enough for him to distinguish different features on the ship, identifying it as Meathead.

A man called out to him. “Stoick! I could remember that face anywhere, and it’s not getting any younger.” He could recognize that voice anywhere.

“Gobber!”

As he looked over the faces of the rest of the men he noted that they were all there, plus an older sailor and another, younger one. The only ones he noticed weren’t there were Hiccup and Astrid, although Hiccup tended to fade into the background, he was worried by Astrid’s absence. Nevertheless, he put it away from his mind. That could wait for later. Now he needed to be a model host for his fellow tribesmen and their guest.

What were they doing on a Meathead ship anyway. Had they foundered at sea? These questions and a thousand more ran through his head, but the only thing he said to the vikings as they lowered the gangplank and walked on land once more was, “Welcome home!”

Dozens in the crowd immediately started to talk all at once, but Stoick waved them off with one hand, then asked the question that many had been asking since the moment when their ship became seriously late.

“What happened?” he asked Gobber.

“Our ship sunk, but Melec and his son saved us.” Gobber pointed at them, especially the son who was now beginning to shrink under all the attention.

“That’s an understatement.” said one of the crew.

“Did everyone make it through all right though.” demanded Stoick.

Gobber looked down, seemingly becoming very interested in the patching of his shoe.

“No. We lost two in the storm.”

Losses were a thing of life in the world of vikings, an ‘occupational hazard’ to quote himself. That didn’t make any of it any less painful, especially in a small village like Berk. And things were just looking up after his failed nest raid. Things could always get worse, Stoick figured.

Stoick didn’t ask after it, he would just let Gobber wait to talk about it. Besides, it would be comparatively easy just to see who was missing. He measured the mingling men with a calculated eye and came up two less than he had sent on the trip. It wasn’t how many had been lost, for it could have been much worse, but who was missing that bothered him.

He recounted, and still came up two short. Screech was there, and so were Phlegma and Gobber and others, but Hiccup and Astrid were missing.

Gobber gave Stoick a painful look and shuffled past him, his men trailing after him.

“We’ll talk about this later.” he said over his shoulder.

* * *

** A/ N  Does anyone listen to my dumb recommendations? Tell me. **

*** ****Knarr, a kind of Scandinavian merchant ship.**


	7. Dragon Down: Presumed Dead

**A/N. You may notice that during this time period I was transitioning to the giant word blocks. This phase lasted for a while.  
**

* * *

Ocean woke up to a blue morning, the air chilly and fresh like the fall leaves. It was almost dark, but the lightening of the sky in the east told her otherwise. She couldn’t see the sun rising, but it would be up soon. Already the birds were chattering in small bursts while the nocturnal life receded and the course of the day began. Ocean got up and began to stretch her legs, feeling rather than hearing the slight pops and crackles her grumbling joints gave her. It had been a while since she’d had a flight even comparable to last night’s, and her body wanted more rest like it always did. Except this time she had a reason to get up at a decent hour instead of letting herself sink back into merciful sleep.

She cast a look at the sleeping form of Stulte, who was breathing in and out gently, his face curled up in a draconic smile. A warm feeling blossomed in her chest, one that she could not easily find a word to describe. As Ocean breathed the pre-dawn air into her lungs and smelled the sweet, pungent tang of fresh apples, she found out what that feeling was. For the first time in a very long time, she knew true happiness. No other dragons interrupted her, no indignant squawks embedded themselves in her ears, for one, unadulterated moment, it was just her and nature, together blended into something far beyond her comprehension.

Perhaps best of all was that she could no longer smell the stench of _Her _fumes and that of the mountains’ sulfuric heat. All her life, from the time she had hatched to the time of her adolescence she had inhaled that oily air, oblivious to the glorious freedom outside of the nest. Now it felt like a great weight had been removed from her chest, one that was invisible. One that she had not even known was there. Before she had been too busy running away from the Queen to even notice the difference, but now it was clear as day what she had been missing.

Ocean walked out of the cave and took another deep breath of the unpolluted air. She just couldn’t get enough of it to satisfy her needy body, so long deprived that it seemed to drink in the atmosphere on it’s very own. She didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry, or whether just do a random happy dance in the middle of nowhere. She could spend a million years like this and never get tired, so thrilling was it to be free of the last tendril of _Her _existence.

The night clouds that had once been barely distinguishable were now illuminated by the sun’s light, turning into surreal red streaks in the sky, their trailing edges transformed into various shades of beautiful dark purples and pretty violets of contrasting hues, seeming to flow across the sky like a smooth waterfall.

Tiny bits of orange joined the mosaic now, and the line of light stretching over the horizon became a shallow bowl. It was not so dark anymore, the trees having gone from tall blobs of nothingness to detailed arrays of leaves and thick, brown trunks with varied bark.

Their island was pretty bare except for some shrubs and bushes. A few gulls milled around on the rocks, but flew away with an indignant squawk as soon as she got closer to them, exploring. She wasn’t hungry enough to consider chasing them though, so she let them go.

Thankfully the little island had a small pool full of water from the last rain, and Ocean took a long refreshing drink, dipping her head into the water when she pleased. It cleansed her face and moistened her tongue, which she had long since dried out from her panting the night before.

Once she had done all this and a little more she returned to the cave, where Stulte was still sleeping but beginning to stir.

“Wake up sleepyhead,” she said, not too harshly.

“Unnh.” he groaned. “Where am I?”

“We’re a long way from home, that’s true at least.”

Stulte got up and brushed himself off with a flap of his handsome wing.

“That doesn’t help.” he said, “But I think I remember now.” he said, looking around for a moment.

“It doesn’t.” said Ocean. “But it’s good to know you’re brain hasn’t cooked off yet.

Both of them said nothing before Stulte seemed to collect himself. He drew up to his full hight, almost crashing into the rock above his head. He drifted off for a moment again, before snapping back to reality.

“Let’s take stock of what we do have, shall we.” he said at last. “I’d prefer to have the rope off at any rate. It’s rather limiting.”

He tried to get the rope that was wrapped around his waist off, but he couldn’t quite, for he bounced up and down with his legs, kicking them and clawing at his chest with his wings. Ocean giggled and started to help him. The line seemed to have a mind of it’s own, nearly tying up Stulte’s feet twice.

Ocean had to be careful because if she pulled too hard, it would saw off and break on the dragon’s hard spines, but too softly and the rope would do it’s own thing, or it would just take too long to get it off, and then Stulte would probably get impatient and snap it.

At this point it was stuck in a little bare spot in Stulte’s scales. She tugged and pulled, but it wouldn’t come out.

Stulte seemed faintly amused.

“I think that you should push up a little.” he said.

“Why?”

“Maybe it’ll come out of the chink if you do that.” he said again, then added, “I don’t like it when it pulls on my skin either. Once it’s out, be careful. I swear that thing has a life of it’s own.”

“I’m starting to think that’s true.” said Ocean through clenched teeth as she tried to pull the rope out her own way.

It didn’t work.

Ocean swallowed her pride, though she hesitated, then pushed up, the rope catching a little on one last spine but then coming off easily enough. She lowered it to the ground gently, carefully, as if scared that if she lost control the rope would embed itself in Stulte’s scales once more.

Finally it was off.

“One _stubborn_ coil of rope. A little frayed but it’ll do.” Stulte remarked.

Ocean was busy separating the scrolls that had fallen off Stulte in the ordeal. She slid them from each other’s embrace and examined the parchment.

“Two scrolls of parchment. Large if I’m not mistaken.”

Stulte did a wolf whistle, and shook his head.

“Nayla didn’t stop at any expenses to get this stuff did she.”

“Or trouble.” added Ocean, though she harbored no ill will towards her friend.

He laughed, a rumbling basso, though it was still reminiscent of what a Nadder should sound like. Ocean laughed half-heartedly along with him, then gave up and returned to sorting the supplies again, though there wasn’t much to go on.

“Now the only thing to do is put this stuff back on again.” Stulte said, not laughing this time.

“What if we left it here for a bit?” asked Ocean. “We could take a quick flight around the island with nothing holding us back. I bet you’re bored from carrying them around all night. A little exercise couldn’t hurt, hmmm?”

Stulte didn’t wait.

“Sure.”

They hopped out of their sleeping hole and prepared to fly. The weather was perfect, with just a hint of flowers refreshing the salty sea air.

“Do you mind if I take a drink first?” asked Stulte. He could smell the pool nearby.

“Go ahead.”

He quickly found the pool and ducked his head in. It was not at all muddy, being trapped in a pile of rock, and he took several quick gulps, wettening his tongue just like Ocean had. He didn’t have much time to stick around though, and he stopped short of filling himself, not wanting to slow himself down for the coming flight either.

He fluttered back to Ocean, who had been waiting patiently for him to come back, and spread his wings wide.

“Wanna race?” he asked.

“I’m tired, but I could use the exercise.”

Ocean shared a mutual grin with him.

“The first one to go all the way around the island twice wins.”

They took off, Ocean leading as they gained altitude and eyed their course.

“Go!” shouted Ocean.

Stulte pulled into an inverted dive, just to show off. Ocean just formed a dagger and streaked ahead, stealing the lead from him.

He couldn’t allow that to happen, so he pumped his wings hard to catch up. He had almost made it to Ocean when they made the first lap, zooming past the cave like maniacs.

They flapped frequently and hard, like songbirds in an elaborate courting dance. Now they were halfway through the second lap and approaching the end. If he wanted to win he’d have to do something to steal first place.

His chance came when Ocean climbed in front of him to gain hight, slowing down and allowing him to close the distance. He followed her in the climb, making use of his heavier weight to keep his inertia, while Ocean struggled in front of him. In a flash he had caught up, and now he was in front. The final turn came, and Stulte was ready.

He spun over like a dive bomber, and spiraled down to the finish, where he attempted to make a stylish landing.

He touched down a bit off kilter, ruining a perfect finish, but he wasn’t complaining. Ocean landed much more gracefully, as if to make up for her earlier performance, not that anyone was watching.

They boiled up a few fish and settled down for a while. After some time Stulte looked up.

“It’s about time we got going.” he said.

“Not just yet.” said Ocean, “Not just yet.” she yawned.

“I think I definitely caught it from you.”

Stulte had no clue about what ‘it’ was. He thought it had something to do with yawns. Speaking of which, soon he couldn’t stop yawning himself.

They went back and forth, opening their mouths wide in turn. He grew tired, and soon they were taking a pleasant nap on the cool autumn ground, underneath the only tree on the island.

“One of us should have left before.. this *yawn happened.” he said right before falling asleep.

Dreams of roses and beautiful paradise islands filled his imagination, so he was rather disappointed when he was the first to wake this time. He nudged Ocean sleepily, to make her wake up.

“Unnh.” she groaned. Not for the first time.

Stulte smiled.

“I think we should get going.” he said, then left for the supplies in the cave. Behind him, Ocean groggily stood, then spent some time in a daze before following him with staggered steps.

Their temporary home was only a few steps away from any place on the island, and soon Stulte was balancing over the entrance, thinking twice about jumping down. Eventually he overcame his fears and reached out. Getting in was not a problem.

The rope and parchment were mildly damp, but it was not serious, and the inborn salt in the water would keep it from the mold and the rot until they found a use for it. He tried to put all his stuff on, but it was too hard to wrap it around his waist properly, until Ocean came up and helped him.

Soon they were all ready to go. Out they flew, well fed, their youthful muscles aching for another flight. They flew on for a while, though it was only half an hour. During that time they passed numerous shoals and small islets, but none of them were as large as the one they had bedded on. The sea stacks grew smaller and smaller in width until finally all that was left of them were little sticks pointing up from the ocean. And after a while even these were gone, swallowed by the waves which made an almost eternal sea.

“The water just goes on forever and ever.” said Ocean, “Is there really a shore on the other side?”

“There must be one, or the world would over balance and tumble. At least that’s what I think.” said Stulte.

“I think we might have made a mistake with this whole business.” said Ocean.

“Mmmhmm.”

They flew on for a minute, but Ocean felt that the conversation wasn’t really over. An awkward silence reigned while it gnawed away at her. Stulte had probably forgotten about it anyway. She should just forget about it too. But something about her wouldn’t let it go, and finally she spoke her opinion.

“But the world looks flat to me.” she announced.

Stulte just chuckled.

“Not really. You can prove the Big Is is spherical.”

“Then prove it!” said Ocean.

Stulte hummed, trying to remember the old days with his tutor. They all seemed so long ago.

“When a dragon flies away from another dragon, he looks like he’s getting lower even though he’s flying at the same hight.”

“Explain.”

“If you have a round rock, you can’t see what’s on the other side. At some point the rock curves away from your eyes so much that you can’t see what’s past it. It’s called the horizon, and it looks like the place where the sky meets the sea.”

They had slowed down to talk together without winding themselves, so Stulte was able to point ahead to the horizon pretty easily.

“If the horizon is the place where the sea meets the sky, why can’t we fly to it?”

“My tutor always said that the air was round just like the Big Is. He says you’ll never be able to fly to the Big Isn’t because you’ll just drown in midair.”

“How do we know that’s true?”

“There was this dragon named Boyle once. Weird name, I know. He was a great scientist, and he created something we call Boyle’s law.”

“So?”

“Boyle’s law says that the more pressure a gas is under, the less space it occupies, and the colder it gets. Pressure is a measure of how much weight is on top of something, right?”

“Right.” said Ocean, who thought for a moment. “What I don’t see is what Boydle’s law has to do with the drowning hight.”

“Boyle, not Boydle. Air weighs something, so the air at the bottom of a mountain is under less pressure then the air at the top.”

Ocean was about to argue this point when she realized that the air sweeping past her wings was real, so that it must have some weight.

“Anyway,” Stulte continued, “if the pressure at the top is less then the pressure at the bottom, then that means that the air on top takes up more space for the same amount of it.”

“Go on.”

“When there’s less air in a given space, it’s hard to get enough in your lungs, so when you get too high, you can’t breathe anymore. That’s my opinion at any rate. And even if you could breathe up there, you’d freeze to death. I knew someone who almost died that way.”

“Oh.”

“Back to the Big Is being round. We know that the Big Is is round because when you’re flying toward an island, you can’t see it until you’re right on top of it.”

“And the higher you go, the easier it is to spot land.” said Ocean, putting the pieces together.

“Because you’re above the rock, looking down.” said Stulte.

“Aha!” said Ocean, who had gotten the concept. “So that’s why the sun sets! The world turns one way, and the sun doesn’t move to catch up.”

“Exactly. To light a candle is to cast a shadow, as my father once said.”

With her question answered, Ocean had no reason not to settle in for the flight, hardy wings flapping rhythmically as they flew steadily towards the horizon.

Now the must of rain had changed to the crisp smell of oncoming sleet. The storm ahead of them seemed to grow larger by the minute, the billowing grey clouds rising above their heads, roiling in the wind’s embrace while recognizable shapes floated past their gaze before turning into something else entirely, chiseled by countless updrafts and gusts rushing past them as they floated high above the water. Faint blue flashes of lightning shadowed and defined the mists, highlighting the clouds behind them and starting off low rumbles of thunder only dimly audible to even the two dragons.

It was a majestic sight, but one filled with thinly veiled danger and unforeseen hazards; even as an especially bright flash of lightning illuminated the the clouds directly in front of her a tingle of energy flowed through her spine and into her body, filling her scales with a mild buzzing sensation that was not quite unlike the jingling shiver of anticipation that she was so used to seeing in Nayla when she woke up in the mornings, ready to play. Still, it hurt to think of her peer’s sacrifice – No, she mustn’t go down that path again. Nayla was fine, she could take care of herself, Ocean told her brain. So why didn’t she believe it?

Ahead of them the storm grew ever taller and darker, obscuring more and more of the sky as they went headlong towards it. Still, there was some consolation for them. The morning sun, which had once threatened to be swallowed by the gray mass, now shone upon their jeweled backs, warming their muscles and seeming to wash the fatigue in their muscles away. It was almost one o’clock, and already they had covered almost fifty-odd miles without realizing it since the beginning of their flight, ever approaching that inflated wall of turbulence.

Stulte decided to fly that chasm when he came to it. A few islets protruded from the water at times, some large enough to sport small buildups of shrubs and seagulls that milled around, restless from the coming weather. He peered into the storm to see if there would be any more of them. He wished he hadn’t. The rain poured down in waving sheets, obscuring all but itself, while his sharp eyes spotted showers of hail the size of baseballs, if they had been invented yet. He subtly began to increase altitude, and Ocean hastened to follow.

For now they were floating in the breeze, riding the occasional updraft from the crashing waves far beneath them, while the sun heated the salt filled air. A slight headwind began to pick up, then increased to a moderate breeze. It wasn’t that they were afraid of, for dragons aren’t afraid of much, but rather what the growing wind symbolized.

A few light wisps of moisture scudded ahead of them, then below them, casting tiny shadows on the surface breakers. The tingling that Ocean had felt every time there was a lightning strike was getting stronger, sending pulses through her spine now, growing the slightest bit uncomfortable. Gusts blew irregularly from below them, and above them, and all around them, making it harder to fly straight. Still, their instincts had told them the right way to go, and they followed. That didn’t mean she had to like crosswinds.

They passed their first real cloud, a puffy and white thing that looked remarkably like a floating, suspended marshmallow. There were more of course, there always were, but Stulte began to climb again, and soon they were out of the first levels and flying to clearer skies above them. Only for a tongue of darkness to fall upon them as a curling vestige of the storm was stretched by the wind so that it cast a shadow on the two dragons far below. The thunder was more audible now; Ocean began to count seconds after the first tingles would arrive in her body, now more like shudders, waiting for the rolling booms.

She gave up after she realized the amount of lightning streaking through the mists ahead of them, which made it virtually impossible to determine whether or not a given lightning flash was related to a given rumble from the clouds. They were coming closer now, the sun completely blocked out by a looming thunderhead behind them, with no land bigger than a tiny, eroded rock sticking out of the waters beneath them.

“This is it. No turning back now.” said Stulte.

Ocean just looked at the looming storm ahead of them, buffeted by increasingly frequent gusts. It had all looked so small and insignificant when she had first seen it as a rising line of pretty white from the island, which now seemed long ago and insignificant to what they were about to attempt.

The first rumbles of thunder became audible, and still there was no land in sight for the two to land. The rain fell from the clouds in great sheets, like a mist obscuring the water underneath the great dog pile of clouds, though it sometimes broke up and he could see the surface beneath.

The waves beneath them started to show whitecaps, and the smell of the spray reached their nostrils stronger than ever. The sun was completely blocked out by a thunderhead high in the Big Is now, almost so high as to be in the Big Isn’t.

It looked almost picturesque, what with the sunlight flaring around the edges, and a golden tinge on its curves. Almost like a head it grew in size and shape, almost taking the form of a human face.

Ocean had to remind herself that this was a dangerous storm she was flying into, with no land in sight to roost on.

“Looks like a bad one.” said Stulte, raising his voice a little now that the rumblings were getting louder.

“It’ll be difficult.”

“We’ll make it.”

Ocean tilted her wings and allowed her body to drift closer to him, borrowing his strength from him.

It was a bad storm, and they were headed straight into it, but Ocean wasn’t afraid. With Stulte by her side she trusted that she could handle anything some fluffy clouds could throw at her, and with that thought they disappeared into the storm’s folds, hidden from the outside world completely.

The first winds were not so bad, and Ocean could easily see her kin flying beside her through the rain. Suddenly her right wing bucked up, and she spun around for a second, losing sight of Stulte. She tried not to panic as she sifted the showers for any hint of him, seeing nothing through the dark mists.

In a moment he was there with her, having turned back the moment she was lost from beside him.

They flew on, shaken but not discouraged.

Hail started to form on the winddrifts. The rain grew thick. Not the kind of heavy rain you and I are accustomed to, which is a mere shower by comparison. This stuff was so thick that a man holding up his hand would not be able to see it in front of him, if it wasn’t hit by hail first, or if he could even keep his eyes open at all in the rain, for it was not only thick but large in size as well, driving into every little nook and cranny mercilessly. The sleet was worse than that, for when it got into a chink in her scales it stayed and seemed to freeze up her joints. And the hail. The hail!

It was hitting her wings and making it hard for Ocean to fly. It felt like her body was being pulverized into dust, torn apart, sprinkled onto the ground and then stamped on for an entire hour. Even though it bounced off her scales with a crack, yet still the force of the blows became almost unbearable. It was the definition of pain, and Ocean felt like she was going to die, but still she kept at it.

She had thoroughly lost sight of Stulte by now, though she could feel his powerful strokes beside her. Now she was navigating mostly by her ‘core senses’, trying to make sense of her situation and fly a straight course against the wind. She was doing a pretty good job of it, though the powerful tempest threatened to drive her off course and blow her into the waves. She gritted her teeth and carried on.

_I am a survivor._

But all storms must blow themselves out sometime, and it looked like this one was doing just that. She could see Stulte in front of her now, but just barely. If she called out at the top of her lungs she might just be able to talk to him.

“We’ve made it!” she yelled.

“That’s the worst that the weather could throw at us, and it failed.” he said triumphantly.

Their celebration was premature, for suddenly a fast, air bursting downdraft caught Ocean by the tail and pulled her down. She tried to fly upwards, but her wings were locked down by the rush of air and couldn’t move properly. She began to spin out.

“Nooooo!” yelled Stulte.

He tried to grab her wing, not caring that he might rip it. Unfortunately his momentum carried him away from Ocean and made it too hard for him to catch her. It brought him out of the reach of the downdraft and kept him safe. The same could not be said for Ocean.

Her descent lasted all of fifteen seconds, a struggle to the very end, tumbling clockwise all the way. The clouds parted below her and she could dimly see through the rain the dim outline of a moderately sized island.

In a last ditch attempt to save herself her second wind came, and she made it out of the cloudburst.

Too late.

Her tail was still unbalanced from the tumble she’d had, and she stalled and flipped over into a flat spin, counterclockwise this time. Her brain was unable to adjust to the sudden change, and she nearly blacked out, very dizzy at any rate.

She struggled to see anything through her dizziness, other than that the ground drew nearer. Her second to last thought before she impacted was the irony that the very thing she had been praying for was about to kill her. Her last thought was a prayer to her father.

Then her wing hit a tree, there was a crack, a jolt of pain, and everything went black.

o-o-0-o-o-o-0-o-o-o-0-o-o-o-0-o-o-o-0-o-o-o-0-o-o-o-0-o-o-o-0-o-o

Astrid’s P.O.V.

I tried to sit up, but my stomach twisted suddenly and I keeled over and threw up. Good thing I’d not had food since breakfast, otherwise it would have been much worse. As it is the only thing that happened was some sea water gushing out of my throat. It felt salty and for the first time I noticed my lips were dry.

Hiccup must’ve carried me away from the shore. I’m not going to say I’m grateful, because that would probably make his brain misfire or something and then he’d die from embarrassment or something. I’ll keep it to myself.

I’m a little dizzy right now, but I should be fine. It’s Hiccup I need to worry about now. I looked around, still confused from it all. The snow is falling lightly on me, still unchanging in it’s beauty and coldness.

I’ve got to take stock of the situation. I looked around and started to rise, but a warm hand stopped me and pushed me down.

It was Hiccup, who had probably saved my life.

“You might catch cold.” he says, and then pulls off his coat and puts it on me. The poor toothpick must be freezing right now without it.

“I’ll go get some wood. Hopefully there will be some flint and maybe there’ll be a fire. You wait here while I do that.”

That tone. Was that.. Authority in his voice? I was thirsty though, so I turned over and scooped up some snow in my bare hands. It felt numb to the touch and for the moment I was grateful for the cold. The snow felt refreshing, moistening my mouth and reinvigorating me somewhat.

I looked up to the gray sky for guidance, but there was none. This is going to be a long day, if I even survive it.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos are appreciated, and if anyone wants to tell me what they think will happen next or in the end, feel free.


	8. Hope

**A/N. **

** The riddle is not a riddle but a quote. On that _note_, nobody's bothered to get a victory cookie in the last seven weeks. I challenge you to it.  
**

**"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."**

* * *

Astrid’s P.O.V

* * *

This is my attempt at taking stock of our circumstances.

We’re on the eastern side of a rock Hiccup picked out for the two of us. The wind is broken by its bulk, and I’m leaning up against it currently, trying to make do with the things I have. The forest looks pretty, although there are a few broken limbs lying on the ground from the sleet and snow, creating small shapes that are rather distracting.

We’re in a sort of cove, protected from the winds by the rock at my back, the protection rock, Hiccup called it.

There are rocks lining it, and we’re sitting on a small hill in the center that will protect us from the spring melt, if we make it till then. When we make it, I remind myself.

It’s not too cold, though my coat must’ve slipped off in the waves somehow, and Hiccup’s is the only one left. He’s given it to me to keep me warm, the little toothpick. He’s the one who really needs it, though it won’t really protect us against anything colder than this.

We have no fire, no food, my only hope is that our clansmen will come back, and there’s only one competent person here. Me.

With only my dagger between us and no other tools besides our heads, I fear we don’t have much of a chance through the cold northern winter.

Sitting here against a dumb rock when I should be up and about doing things isn’t helping my poor spirits. Unfortunately Hiccup was right about me when he said I wasn’t in good enough shape. I’ve got a hacking cough now, which has gotten worse since he dragged me off shore. I should get warm.

The only way to do that right now is to snuggle deeper into his coat, which being made for a walking fishbone, is horribly inadequate and small, though it’s good material. Perk of being the chief’s son at any rate.

Our only hopes are that Hiccup and I will be able is to make a lean-to shelter, which Hiccup is working on, or at least trying to. There’s no mud to patch it together and doubtless the thing will fall before it’s even complete. It already has, twice in fact.

I’d better at least help him, so we can survive. I don’t have any faith in that boy.

My interior monologue was broken by Hiccup, whose shout shattered the stillness.

“Aha!”

I look up at him from my small blanket, asking an unasked question. He sees my glance and settles down a bit, though his face still looks jubilant.

Hiccup has three small sticks in his hands and a little moss set on the rock beside him. He’s cleared off the snow on a small stone and that’s been his thinking space for a while. I haven’t bothered him since we got here. At least he shows good judgement.

I coughed, both from my cold and to get his attention.

“What’d you find?”

“I think I’ve solved our structural problem.” He held up the moss. “I can use this to tie the ends together so our shelter doesn’t fall.” He pointed excitedly to the pile of sticks that was our current shelter.

“What about a fire? We’ll need one.”

“I haven’t found any flint yet to start it, but I’m pretty sure there’s some over there in the marl.” He got up and began to walk over to one of the rock patches that decorated the forest floor in narrow splotches of yellowish grey, got down on his legs and started combing through the stones. It was a few yards away, and he was facing at a three-quarters angle to me, so I couldn’t see what he was doing very well.

He looked through them with an experienced eye, combing over the marl, (What’s that?). He broke off a rock, looked it over, then put it down. He found another one, looked it over too, and put that on the ground as well.

I was getting bored when I heard the dull smash of stone against stone and my eyes refocused back to him. Hiccup was wringing his fingers, while some silver flakes skittered about on the ground in front of his knees, obviously flint. He licked his fingers and put them in his vest.

“Found some.”

The stuff he’d got was in several pieces now, but still large enough to effectively spark and strike flame. It was cloudy and had several bent fault lines from what I could see. Not good enough for weapons, but it would serve our purpose, for now.

“Now, I only have to find some tinder.” said Hiccup. Easier said then done. The sleet had crept into every last corner of almost all the trees in the bloody forest.

“There’s a little birch stand, behind you.” I said to him, not wanting to point.

“Thanks.”

He gathered all the sharp pieces with a stone and dumped them into his vest, not wanting to touch them for their razor edge would draw blood and sting him if he made a mistake. He tried to stand up, but here he had a problem. Having his weight on the knees for so long had crushed the blood flow and moving them was hard, let alone standing up.

He braced himself against the rocks with one of his hands while the other held the precious flint, still in his vest. Somehow he managed to push himself up without falling or spilling his cargo. He turned around slowly, eyes darting to and fro from the birch stand to the ground, as if to mark it in his memory.

Now he was back, setting down the pieces in the snow gently, but I stopped him this time. I pulled my hand out of the jury-rigged blanket and cleared away the snow, brushing it’s palm accidentally against one of the shards. It stung, but I’m a viking. I ignored the pain before putting back the hand.

He nodded a thanks, then emptied his vest while I rubbed the blood off my fingers. He stood up against the large rock and blew on his fingers for a second, then looked around him with a sense of accomplishment.

Our little camp looked pitiful, but it was all his work, so I allowed him to bask in his pride for a minute, just to let him have some confidence about himself. We can’t have him giving up while I’m sick, can we? Hopefully I'll get better, and then I won’t have to rely on him.

Finally I started to get some stones and lay them in a fire circle, reminding him of his job. He made a face and opened his mouth, but closed it and walked off to the birch stand.

There was a dead stump close at hand, and some fallen branches would make good starter after the tinder was all gone. Firewood wouldn’t be a problem, at least not for the time being.

Once I finished up with the fire circle and the larger fry I started gathering any small twigs I could find that were dry and would be able to sustain a growing fire.

Soon my hands were full and I had to return to the fire pit, only a little way, for I had not strayed far. I dumped them in the middle, making a small pile that was easily reachable. On second thought though, maybe I should put them on the rim to make space?

I scooped them up and did just that, sticking around for a few seconds to make sure that they wouldn’t slip off from their perch.

Hiccup wasn’t back yet so I started looking around for more twigs. I found a small pile beneath a rock, but they were wet and so useless to me. The ripping sound of tearing bark vaguely reached my ears. I forced myself onto my legs and started walking in a circle around camp, searching for more fuel. There were some more sticks lying on top of rocks and things, but while not quite wet, they were damp, and I passed them by, not wanting to bother with them quite yet.

I found some dry wood scraps on the bottom of a half-fallen log that had somehow not been hit by the sleet or chopped up by hail.

I dropped the twigs I was carrying and loaded up on rotting wood. Soon I was holding my left hand at a weird angle, trying to keep my spoils (literally) from dropping on the ground, but at the same time attempting to fit as much in as possible. My coughing fits were not helping, shaking off most of my progress before it even started.

After a while I gave up on this and put the rest of it in my right hand. Then I rubbed the trunk with my elbow, trying to get some to fall on my open hands now that I couldn’t use them. Hiccup interrupted me.

“If you just carried your stuff back to camp and dumped what you have, you could just come back with empty hands. Then it wouldn’t be so hard to get the wood off the trunk.”

Why does he always have to be right? At least, most of the time he’s been right. But not when it comes to killing dragons. I’m still leading there.

As it was, I grunted and plunged through the deepening snow back to the fire pit. Hiccup had arranged a temporary moss shelter for the wood and flint so it wouldn’t get wet. They had better protection then we did. Very funny.

Hiccup took one look at the stones and started to move them carelessly from the middle of our little sanctum to our rock, showing strength I didn’t know he had.

“Why are you moving the stones Hiccup? I just got done with our fire pit, and now you’re going to mess it up.”

“I want the fire to be inside our shelter, so I want to build the fire around it, not the other way around.” he said, with a tinge of authority in his voice that made me uncomfortable.

Once again he’s made sense. But that doesn’t change the fact that he was going to tip the sticks I had painstakingly gathered on the snow if he kept moving them roughly like that.

So I retorted, “You’ll spill the tinder if you’re not careful!”

“I can always move it, besides, I can be more careful than most people think.”

This coming from the village clown, not convinced. As if reading my thoughts, Hiccup spoke up for himself again.

“It’s not that I’m naturally clumsy or anything like that,” he dropped a rock on the snow with a ‘chock, then left for another one, “the pressure gets to me whenever you guys are watching, specially Snotlout and the gang.” He dropped another rock and then didn’t immediately go get a replacement, wheezing as he filled his lungs with fresh air.

Still not convinced. I gave him a hard look.

“Sooo, if you would stop staring at me like that, I might be able to get this done without screwing up and killing myself or something.”

I just turned and started the short walk back to the log for a second load, but I didn’t get five yards before Hiccup stopped me with a sincere plea.

“Astrid, can I borrow your knife for a minute?”

I contemplated for a moment. He would probably cut his fingers off, or worse. But it wasn’t like I was in good enough shape to use it either.

“Sure.”

I grabbed it out of my belt, where it was hanging awkwardly, and tossed it to him handle first, not without trouble, I am ashamed to note.

He caught it with surprising dexterity, but unsurprisingly his clumsiness struck again, and while he was trying to grab it it slipped out of his finger with the blade pointed downwards, falling and almost hitting his leg. He jumped out of the way at the last moment, but he still managed to smash his back on the big boulder, the protection rock, as he’d named it, though ironically it couldn’t protect him from himself.

Hiccup groaned while my knife skidded on the ground before finally stopping, it’s path seeming to trace a sadistic expression in the snow.

He straightened and got back up well enough, though a little worse for wear. I couldn’t help but feel a wee bit sorry for him, but I turned away and headed back to get some more wood. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him tentatively pick up the dagger with his fingers before he passed out of my vision.

The only good thing ,now, was that it had stopped snowing, even if the sky was still cloudy and it’s greyness still sapping my energy.

I’d take what I could get.

I got some more wood out of that dead tree, but hollowing out the inside had taken it’s toll. It was nothing but bark and a little innards now, so much so that I wasn’t surprised when it sagged in its perch, twisting and rolling on the ground until it snapped pitifully. All that was left was a small gash in the snow and the remains of one, very wet log.

When I turned to go back to camp I hit a deep spot on a drift and the snow happily spilled into my boot, reminding me that fire was a priority, and that time was precious.

I straightened my back, ignoring the numbed cries of my toes. If I needed to amputate them for this I would never forgive him, though I’d never really take revenge. He had had enough to think about already. Though I would never admit it, Hiccup was becoming more of friend to me.

Thinking this I strode into camp, false confidence plastered on my face.

The boy was sitting on his rock, cutting up bark with his dagger to catch a spark. Before I could hail him I had another coughing fit shake up my head, my eyes teared up, and I couldn’t see very much. I brushed the tears away between times, though it left splinters in my face that burned my eyes even more.

I shoved the wood into it’s shelter beneath the moss and nearly groaned in frustration. I swear that the flint looked at me smugly. I was still coughing when Hiccup heard me and looked up, compassion in his face, though it showed some wariness as well.

“I could have done that, you know.” he pointed to the armload of splinters and branches I had brought.

“I don’t need your help.” I practically spat the last word at him. Immediately he shrank back into his outer shell and ceased to be himself.

“Have it your way.” he said, then added, copying my voice, “Watch the fire when it’s lit. I’ll just go to sleep if you don’t need my help, pity if you ask me.”

No one asked you, I thought, but didn’t say out loud. Hiccup at least deserved some respect, after all he had rescued me from the waves. And probably revived me, which he wasn’t gloating about like Snotlout would.

In fact, he’d said nothing to me over the incident, nor even mentioned it in passing. He still didn’t care about me though, like all the other boys, he must only be focused on the ‘Hofferson’, not on the Astrid. Someday he’ll slip up, and I’ll catch him. But not now. We still need each other to survive.

Hiccup wasn’t really serious about going to sleep though. In fact he kept on working with my dagger, slicing up tree bark with ongoing determination, though his fingers were red and his wrist shook.

“I might not need your help,” I told him, “but you certainly need mine.”

His coat was already on his back, so there was no need for that. I plopped down next to him instead and grabbed a piece of birch, tearing it into small strips, though apparently they were not small enough for his tastes, as he took them and tore them up savagely. After a minute, the stuff was now only in tiny wisps. He took it and careful to avoid the snow, tipped them onto another flat rock with the other tinder, next to the fire circle, which he had rebuilt while I was away. There was no trace of the twigs I had made so much of a fuss over on the rock. I searched the snow, and finding no trace of a spill returned my eyes to the pit.

Hiccup caught my stare at the fire circle and just pointed at our fuel rock, almost like he’d read my mind.

He makes me nervous when he does that, seeming to anticipate my thoughts. It’s nothing special, what he can do, he’s just reading my face, but some part of me, however little, is superstitious, and it’s hard to brush that fact away when someone gives you an unspoken answer to an unspoken question, even though we were just talking about it earlier.

We have enough tinder now, but Hiccup doesn’t look like he’s going to stop tearing up this bark anytime soon. He has his reasons.

“We’ll make double the amount we need,” once again the answer to an unspoken question. “If this fails I don’t want to be back to square one.”

Good thinking, I admitted, although he could do a better job putting away our work. A wind could come and blow it all away, though we were on the lee of a big rock, or it could come and snow, though it had stopped, Gods, was that only an hour ago.

I looked up, used to being able to tell the time from the sun. It just wasn’t out today, hiding in its warm home waiting for the bad weather to pass. I smiled at my analogy. There would always be room for more fireside stories, if only this would work out.

After a few more minutes of frantic ripping, Hiccup announced to his huge audience (Me), that we were ready to start the fire.

First he cleared the fire pit of any snow, leaving behind only pine needles and some frozen mud. Then he took some of the driest branches and laid them straight from one side to the other, putting some of the larger twigs beneath them as he did so. Then he took a little more than half of the birch bark wisps and made a fluffy pile, putting an indent with his thumb in the middle.

He set it down on the branches with a flourish, then reached for the flint, which I had forgotten about. Hiccup knocked it a few times with his knife, but not to strike a spark. Rather, he seemed to be doing something with it.

“Testing?” she asked.

“I’m edging it.” he said thoughtfully, then added, “It has to be just the right way to spark like I want.”

“How do you do that.” This information could be useful in the future.

He mumbled something under his breath to the tune of ‘the great Astrid doesn’t know how to start a fire.’

“I do know how to start one, I just don’t know how to edge the flint.” I said, fighting to not raise my voice at the end.

“The flint doesn’t actually ignite. I think a tiny piece of the steel peels off and lights the flames. In order for that to happen the flint has to be angled just right.”

“But I thought the flint ignited. What makes the steel get so hot?”

“It’s called friction, a Roman term I think.” he said. “It means that when you rub two things against each other, they get hot. I have a theory about that...” he trailed off.

“And my dagger won’t dullen.” Changing the subject.

Hiccup considered.

“It’ll take time, much more time than you’d think. It’s a very tiny piece of steel, to rephrase.”

“Can you show me how to do the edging then.”

“I’m done with this piece, but we can do another one.”

He reached for another piece of the sharp rock and held it up in his hands.

I watched almost eagerly as he took the dagger and knocked it hard against a small crack in the stone. Some of it split off and Hiccup held that piece up, after he found it in the snow.

“Mudstone.” he said.

The remaining rock was blisteringly sharp.

“Is it ready?”

“Too piercing of a point. It won’t make the spark I’m looking for, because it’ll only break off when ya’ hit it.” A trace of his mentor’s accent creeping into his voice.

He expertly cut it off into the shape of an arrow head, leaving a flatter, and decidedly smaller, piece of flint behind. With a last cut he dressed one last sharp edge down and smoothed it.

“Gobber’s better than me at this kind of thing,” he said at last, “But I’ve almost got him beat.” Matter of fact.

He motioned for her to get some wood for their fire. I found a few small branches and brought them over.

“I really should start getting some more wood for overnight.” This was just an excuse and I knew it. I wanted to see a fire burning in the pit as much as he did.

Hiccup just offered the flint to me.

“It is your dagger after all.” he said.

I just smiled and tried to strike it. The spark flew completely the wrong way, opposite the snug cocoon of birch bark, and into the snow, smothered by the frozen wastes.

Hiccup frowned and took the flint. He took my knife as well, and showed me to strike down at about a thirty degree angle, which I was unaccustomed to, because my fireplace had always been large enough to catch any sparks that missed.

“If you strike like this,” and he made the fifteen degree angle I had been using, “it’ll just bounce off the knife and into the middle of nowhere, which doesn’t help.”

I nodded.

“But if you do this,” he said, doing it properly, “it’ll work.”

He hit it and the knife made a grating sound, the sparks coincidentally landing in the tinder, lighting it and provoking the first baby curls of smoke, which quickly started consuming the entire bundle before it was all afire.

“Shoot!” said Hiccup, who reached for the twigs hastily. A little too hastily, for most of them got pushed over the rock, ironically reminding me of the day’s earlier incident.

He scrambled around but I stopped him, gently feeding the tiny flames their food. I wasn’t completely clueless like he seemed to think. At least he wasn’t a mini Snotlout, bragging about how he’d saved me from frost and starvation.

Now the fire flickered. Hiccup blew gently, almost imperceptibly if not for the bulging of his cheeks. It flared back to life, red in it’s fiery revival, almost blowing away despite the gentlest breeze.

I brought in some of the rotting debris from the log and carefully, not wanting to brush off the precious flames, put it on. The effect was immediate. The flames immediately dimmed and threw up a small tuft of smoke. Just as I was beginning to worry, it flared back again like normal.

I was thinking, and so was Hiccup. We both knew that if we couldn’t feed this to the fire, than what hope was there of feeding it the larger branches without smothering it.

Hiccup slid a hand up to his chin.

“Hmm.”

We both stared at the problem a little longer, only moving to give twigs to the fire when it consumed the ones it had.

Finally Hiccup shouted, just like earlier that day.

“Aha!”

“What’s aha?”

“Heat. We can use the fire’s heat to dry out the rot before it smothers it with all the moisture.”

I saw where his excitement was coming from. I grabbed a bit of rot out of the pile and placed it next to the fire, but not on it. Soon it started to feel less moist to the touch, and I judged that it was ready and I fed the once wet stuff to the fire, consciously and unconsciously holding my breath to see whether it would work.

It fed on the new stuff quickly, forcing Hiccup to feed it his pile. Unable to resist the urge to experiment, I placed some undried rot directly into the middle of the flames. They sputtered a little, but held. The tension in my muscles loosened, for I felt I had made a great accomplishment, no matter how small it may have seemed to anyone else.

Soon we had graduated to other things. The fire had nearly burned through the branches by now, and several sparks were busy priming the fuel below as the smoke soared into the air, smoke which would hopefully attract human attention.

“ Hey Astrid, I could use a little help over here.” said Hiccup from somewhere on my right. I had been so distracted by the warmth that I hadn’t noticed he’d slipped away and was trying to pull up the dead tree stump all by himself.

I got up and came to his aid, gripping the root stem underneath the large stump and attempting to pull it free.

Thankfully the freeze had either exploded the trees roots or they had snapped, granting Hiccup and I a welcome victory.

As we split the log up and fed it to our camp fire, I remember feeling that if you gave me some food and an axe, I could take on the world. Me and Hiccup had survived our first day, and done well.

Sometime during the evening, for the sky was turning blue, I heard Hiccup get up. A minute later he returned with some pine fronds we could use for beds, which I certainly wasn’t refusing. As for blankets, I gave him back his coat, which he was happy for.

“Hiccup,” I said sleepily, “shouldn’t we get some more for the fire?”

“We’ve got enough.” he said, equally as sleepily, then added, “I’ll put on some more wood. Ought to be easy enough.”

True to his word he chunked another piece of the stump onto the fire, sending up a shower of bright orange sparks. I fell asleep to the crackling of a happy fire, and the slight breath of the wind moving over the snow.

And as I pulled some pine boughs over me, I thought of the very unlikeliness of our survival and relished init.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Published on AO3 Monday November 4th, 2019.


	9. What We Deserve

* * *

I opened my eyes and shivered. For a moment I thought I was back at home, under the covers, but the smell of fresh pine needles cleared my illusion. Still  my cold brain struggled to shake off the fantasy, and for a moment I even thought I heard the sounds of the village. 

All to no avail, as I looked up and saw no roof but the cloudy night sky, glowing with a slight tinge of blue from the reflection of the sea. We were not even close to the daylight hours yet, but I could see our camp through the shadows anyway, surrounded by the rocks.

I blinked back a few sleepy tears and looked around. Everything looked normal.

There was something missing though, and I didn’t know what. The fire was still smoldering, though it was in glowing embers and had no flame.

I looked around once, twice, but couldn’t see anything wrong. Then I realized that it was Hiccup, or rather his absence, which was making me uneasy, as the makeshift bed was empty, and looked like it had been for some time, for the outer fronds were starting to freeze over the rocky ledge he’d been sleeping on. The wind had covered our mess from the previous night, and the snow had blown into our tracks and all empty spaces except for a small circle around the fire, covering everything in a powdery white.

Only a few footprints remained, and those were the ones leading from his bed to the forest outside, but there were none coming back. What kind of trouble had he gotten himself into this time?

If he was gone he was gone, but surprisingly he’d taken his coat with him, so this was more than just a small trip to tinkle.

My inner clock, you might say, had woken me up around the time I usually do, in the summer, so I was sharp and alert. I reached for my axe out of pure habit, and met nothing but snow, which confused me for a second until my rational mind took over. Not having my axe was unfamiliar and it threw me off.

Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen my dagger either, and I was sure I’d had it when I fell asleep. He must be hunting then, which I still don’t trust him to do. Typical.

I looked over the footprints again. Hiccup had clearly awoken only a short time ago, from what his prints told me. He’d sat up for a minute or two, probably to think, judging from an indentation on the branches. He’d visited the wood pile, that I could make out, but only dimly in the shortage of light, probably feeding the fire. Then his tracks revealed that he’d stood and looked at the blaze for some time, for they had stopped in one place and then swung towards the entrance.

Before he left he had stopped for the knife, at least that’s what I assumed, though there weren’t any tracks to make me think that that had happened, or perhaps he’d taken it earlier, and the prints had been blown away in the night by crosswinds. This and more I saw, though I couldn’t take it all without moving my head.

If there’s one thing I hate it’s doing nothing, and that won’t change just because I’ve gotten stranded on a deserted island. Now not so deserted, thanks to us.

I sat up, careful not to put my hands down to avoid getting them dipped in the snow again, and stretched my legs briefly before standing and cleaning my eyes of the pebbles that had formed overnight.

The fire seemed fine for the moment, but I wasn’t about to go on another roller coaster ride trying to light it, especially when I couldn’t find the tinder anywhere, so I wasn’t going to take any chances.

I grabbed a piece of wood that used to be part of the stump, stoked the fire with a stick in my other hand, and threw it in. The embers responded with crackling and popping noises as ice in the cracks of the wood evaporated and blew up like popcorn. Tending the hearth was and has never been my favorite thing to do, but as with all women, I was skilled in it, and soon I had a moderate blaze that I likely wouldn’t need to feed for the rest of the morning.

I looked over at our wood pile, which was _still_ faring better than us (there was a sprinkle of fresh snow on top of it’s covering, some of which was on me), and noticed that I’d used enough to warrant scouting for more.

Hiccup hadn’t gotten back yet either, which wasn’t helping my nerves. I decided that I’d get some more wood and then go find him.

Before I did that I decided to take a moment to stretch and inhale the fresh night air. I touched my toes ten times and would’ve done push ups in the absence of something to practice with, but again, the snow. I looked down for a second to catch my breath and said to myself.

“Screw it, I’m doing this.”

I got down and went for the record.

Fifty strokes later and I was sweating all over and striving to catch my breath. Deeming this a proper warm-up, I trudged out of the cove that was our home and was immediately hit by a strong gust, a gust the likes of which we had been protected from in our little camp. The sky seemed a little less dark now and the dark blue reflected by the clouds started to take on a little more grey in it’s hue.

I took a left. Sometimes I turned half way and looked behind me. My tracks didn’t go very far back, the going was hard in this forest of clumped trees and thorns that would poke you just the wrong way, even if they were dead.

Even as I thought this another bush prodded me with its long appendages. Case in point. I resisted the urge to crush the offending bramble, to tear out it’s life force, but that would make too much noise, so I continued to half-meander, half-follow the tracks that marked where he had tread.

I chanced to look to the right and saw that a young sapling had snapped under the snow’s weight and looked burnable, if I could but brush off the snow. It would be easy to carry even for the boy, but I had not seen any sign that he was out for wood, confirming my suspicions that he was out for game.

I twisted the trunk, separating it from it’s roots, and carried it back, walking to the side of Hiccup’s tracks so I wouldn’t step on them, though he seemed to have found a good run.

The path he’d chosen threaded through several patches of wintering bushes and was too tight to carry the wood side ways, like I’d prefer to. Instead I had to carry it upright, which meant that the splinters dug into my hands and itched painfully.

The wreckage of what remained I tossed up on the wood pile, though not in a random manner. Instead, I put the bushy end on the low side of the stack, leveling it so future logs wouldn’t roll off.

Returning to Hiccup’s old spoor, I quieted myself, so as not to scare off anything he might catch, if he even got close to any possible game, which I didn’t trust him to do either.

Once I’d gotten to my previous point, I started to keep an eye on the trail, splitting my attention between it and my surroundings, well aware that I was defenseless other than my fists, to any dragon that might come my way and try to eat me. But so was Hiccup.

When I came to a frozen brook I noticed a few rocks around the edge of the bank. I spent a little time breaking off frozen stones and looking for one that would fit my hand, so at least I would have something to use as a weapon if trouble should arise.

I found one that was round and was just the right weight for me to use. I stepped over the thin stream of water and retraced my footsteps.

There was a small valley which Hiccup had avoided, (good for him), for in it’s rut were wolf tracks. I steeled myself. We were not alone.

The path came to a meadow, which Hiccup had skirted around until (I checked the breeze) he was downwind of it, where he had crept up to the edge and waited from the looks of it, for his knee prints were clearly visible in the snow.

There was a large rock sticking out of the snow in the middle of the snow that dragons would likely use to sun themselves, if there were any around here, as there were not many trees to block the sun’s light for about fifty yards.

It wasn’t exactly round per say, it rather looked like a stick with an apple on top, round at the head but having a protrusion, which is why some of the trees were missing.

Hiccup’s tracks went into the middle of the clearing, and it took an experienced observer to see why. A rabbit’s trail crossed the center of the meadow, next to the rock, and where his course intersected the rabbit’s, the rabbit had started running. A touch of light brown and white hair was sprinkled over the grass. It had been a close shave, literally.

I didn’t know he was such a good shot, but I couldn’t help but think that he might have lost the dagger like that. Hiccup’s tracks led to a large cedar tree, but I couldn’t find any trace anywhere until I looked at the trunk. There was a gash where something pointed and sharp had smashed into the bark, but no trace of my knife. I half-smiled, thankful that he’d gotten it back.

I headed acrosst from where I had last seen his prints, thinking that he would have circled around. I was right. When prey is attacked but doesn’t die quickly or gets away from the hunter, I knew there would be consequences, for this rabbit would warn all the other rabbits until they would all would hide in their holes and not come out for the rest of the morning. Its squeal would also attract predators, who would spoil the game.

Soon Hiccup’s tracks stopped going in a straight line and started meandering like a wild animal’s after a while, and soon I found the reason why. Several rabbit prints mingled with his, and it looked almost like he had been crawling on all fours.

As I looked up habitually to watch for danger, I caught a red splotch at the edge of my vision. Hiccup’s trail led straight to it, and there was warm blood all over the ground, but whatever it was hadn’t been killed immediately, as the blood was wiped all over the place.

His knife had flown true, a much better performance then I’d expected. You learn something every day.

Hiccup hadn’t skinned it, but he had ripped open the stomach to let it air, as there was a little spare intestine hanging on a drooping branch from what I could see.

His tracks went on after that, though they were inconsistent, as if he was sick. He probably was, from what I’d guessed. He’d turned around to head home, and I did too, following him all the way. When I reached the marker I’d set for myself I saw a bush that looked… off. His tracks led straight to it. I would of laughed if the situation hadn’t been so serious.

There I found Hiccup passed out, with an outstretched hand holding a dead rabbit. My knife had been wiped off and was now back in his vest’s extra holder. Perk of being the chief’s son, he gets an area for all his stuff.

I shook his head to try and wake him up, a head which was quickly becoming illuminated by the light of the sun coming over the horizon in a half circle, shining through the woods like a great beacon, a light in the darkness.

Still unable to awake him, I cast my gaze to the East, enjoying the sunrise which was now glimmering on the horizon, knowing that in time the glowing orb would disappear into the blue clouds, that the rest of the day would be grey and dreary, if not crisp with snow.

But for now, the sky glowed purple and pink, and soon yellow, all the colors of a rainbow, which I had witnessed many times before exactly like it was now, only this time it was strangely magnificent to the eye. A pity it couldn’t last forever, for it’s light was warming me, if only a little.

Soon the sun rose and was swallowed by the haze, a spectacle gone, turned into a barely visible white ball, surrounded by a halo of turbid, milky gray mists that moved, ever changing, across its surface.

I looked down and decided that if Hiccup wasn’t going to move, I’d have to drag him back, no questions asked. He looked alright, if being face flat on the snow was alright. He was cold, for his face was pale as the moon, not like it usually wasn’t, but even more so than usual.

I pulled him up by the shoulder, taking the unsheathed blade away from his belt, so that he wouldn’t cut himself in his sleep. The rabbit I fiddled around with a while, for setting the meat in a spot where it wouldn’t fall was hard to do and do right. The blood was thankfully frozen, so I ended up just putting it on Hiccup’s chest and damn if it dares to fall off.

The snow at my feet was dry and relatively thin for this time of year, but ahead of me lay almost half a mile of travel in windblown drifts, piled up on the edges of a crevice cut shallowly in the rocks by an unknown hand, and probably the den of a few wolves. Hopefully they weren’t hungry.

I looked down as I reached the valley, I half dreaded the journey, but I reconciled myself against fear and stepped down into the snow. My legs would just have to forget the miles.

It was almost half an hour later that we reached Protection Rock. Hiccup had woken up half way through, and I was grateful he did, for my arms were about to give out. They had been sagging at the time. I should practice more.

He freaked out when he discovered that I was carrying him, and twisted out of my grasp, floundering in the snow like a dog out to play in the mud, only this was cold snow. I wasn’t too happy that he’d spilled the rabbit when he’d rolled away and it’d fallen to the ground, but while I was busy fishing it out of the snow he was busy rubbing dirt out of his eyes now that he’d finally sat up, still weak from fainting.

“Please don’t kill me!” he said to a tree. I thought that was pretty funny.

“You were already close to death anyway.” I said. “Too cold. I was carrying you back.”

“It’s nice to know you have my back.”

Hiccup had scratched out most of the dirt in his eyes, though the way he rubbed his right socket discreetly told me that he hadn’t gotten out all the offending particles, for they had dug into his system, probably when he landed face down, though how he got dirtside I have no idea.

His face was ruddier, though it was probably his blush that got my attention. Now his face contorted in the most weird way.

He stood up and broke through the snow layer with his knees, making him land flat on his face.

“My neck burns.” he said. Defrosting always hurt.

“You’ll make it.”

“Thank you, for your generous encouragement.” he said, slipping back into his shell.

He stood up and started walking over the snow. He was graceful for the first few steps, then he tumbled head over heels, tripping himself somehow. I feared in my heart that this would be a long trip, but I couldn’t do anything about it, so I slung the frozen game over my shoulder and kept on.

To Hiccup’s credit, he picked right back up again, and kept going. It was only that viking determination that kept our walk from being a complete disaster.

Still my fears were appeased, as we made decent going in the white formless world that was our existence.

Hiccup walked to my front, stepping around piled up snow that would have filled his shoes, if they hadn’t been made into weights for his feet already. What I would give for a new pair of socks, for mine were wet also, and their heaviness tired me.

But now we’re back at home, our new home, and I can’t help but think this place is changing me, both inside and out, because everything is different here.

We must honor the old ways, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t make new paths, for our own good.

And as Hiccup looked over our camp he suddenly decided that he would become an old sage.

“Life is a giant game of choice, because what happens to you is all the result of decisions, whether good or bad.”

After that his poetic side shut up and he started rubbing his back on a rock, warming his toes over the fire, letting the water drip and sizzle off his lowered heel as he rested the bones of his body.

The rabbit Hiccup had killed was a large one, ears extending like giant flaps, covered in pink hair and red blood. I held it up by the two rear legs and started to skin it with the dagger, which I took out of my belt where I’d put it.

The spinal cord I cut with one practiced slash, which severed it and loosened the rabbit’s head. I began to search for the seam in the collarbone, running the knife along it under the flesh until I felt the sharp part of the blade slip into a chink at the base of the long neck. I pushed down and at the same time gave a flick of the wrist.

There was a pop and the head came completely out, held only by the skin clinging onto the back of the skull. I made an easy line through the hide and set aside the head carefully, for some of the parts might become useful, and it wasn’t like it would rot or go bad, not in this weather. It would require protection from scavengers for sure, but it wasn’t like it was a big loss.

The rabbit hadn’t been properly field dressed by Hiccup, because he didn’t know how, so the meat was already hardening and would be more stringy than I’d like. He’d also pierced the skin and the meat at the same time, potentially introducing parasites to our food.

I sighed. That boy and his… hiccups. I couldn’t do anything about that now except be caring and gentle with the meat.

I pierced one of the back legs just below what would be a rabbit’s knee, intending to hang it up, but at the same time I noticed that I needed to use the point instead of the flat to cut through the skin. The knife was not at the point of being dull to the touch, no, but I’d need to sharpen the left edge soon. The right one was fine, and I used that for the rest of the skinning.

There were no trees in camp so I took a stick and hung the animal up that way, neck down so it would drain faster. Nothing happened. I was puzzled.

“The blood’s frozen.” Hiccup answered another unspoken question. “Put it by the fire, then skin it. They’re such small animals the blood will run out when you’re preparing it if you ask me.” No one asked him, but it was good advice.

The place where I hung up the rabbit was relatively out of the way, so I had to step in a snow drift when I took it down.

Hiccup had taken all the blown leaves on the ground and swept them into the fire while I’d beheaded our game, and the forest floor had dried in that time, so I laid the rabbit on its back and began to work the knife with skill, starting at the slash he’d made in the belly to prevent the intestines from gassing and ruining the meat. Not without washing my hands in clean snow first.

I lopped off all four feet at the ankle, bending them forward to get at the knuckle of the thing, where the fluids first began to ooze out as my fingers tingled from the warmth of the fire. I didn’t need them and we weren’t going to make glue any time soon, so I threw them into the new refuse pile on my left, intending to bury them when I got the chance so as not to attract attention.

“What if we took the fur and made a pillow out of this stuff.” Hiccup mumbled under his breath, obviously talking about the fur. “I could stitch it together with bone shards. Maybe that’ll work. Or I could make something to carry water with. A satchel?”

His hand went straight to his chin in his standard thinking pose and stayed there. I snapped back to my work, distracted for too long.

I cut through the fur at the legs, paying no heed to the chunks of frozen.. something that came out. Hiccup looked away from the scene, too squeamish to be of any help to me. Well, he wasn’t completely useless.

“Can you build up the fire so I can cook this? That’d help.”

“No problem. But could you not make it so bloody when you skin things? Blood, not a big fan.”

“We’re vikings, it’s an occupational hazard. Are you helping or not?”

“Using my fathers words against me. I’ll do it.”

I smiled and returned to my work.

Soon I’d taken the fur off the forelegs too, and in only a moment the majority of the cuttage was sitting on the former skin of the animal, and I was ready to do the insides.

Hiccup had already made a small incision into the stomach area, so I didn’t need to bother with that, though I was still annoyed with him over his clumsiness.

The small intestine I pulled out and laid on the fur, bunched up to conserve space. I wasn’t picky about my eating habits. I cut it open and emptied the middle of its contents.

The large intestine, on the other hand, I cut out completely and put in the refuse pile, for it was filled with pellets that I didn’t want to spend time cleaning out for no guarantees. Because it was attached to the gall bladder I moved very carefully around it, for anything the bile touched would become inedible, and I didn’t want to puncture the sac that contained the digestive juices.

The stomach was an entirely new can of beans. It had only weak acid in it compared to other animal’s, but I still didn’t trust it, and it smelled rather disgusting too, though I’d done this kind of thing before, I’d never got used to it, yet.

Refuse.

That finished with the digestive tract, which needed to be removed first, lest a wayward cut puncture it and turn our food into a steaming mess.

The powerful hamstrings which had formerly propelled the rabbit to lightning speeds now served a totally different purpose, and were placed with the cleaned intestines.

The rest of the meat I carved and placed there as well. When I was done I was running out of space and there were only the bones and organs left, which made me wish we had a pot. We could eat the marrow over the fire when push came to shove if we needed to.

The thought of a good soup, just faintly salted with some good oils and filled with choice vegetables and meats excited my tongue and set my saliva flowing, though it had been for some time now as I took the thin white sticks and set them aside with pleasure.

The vital meats were in a thin transparent membrane that covered the ribs, holding them in and stopping the heart from tearing itself apart when the rabbit made a dash. The arteries were now drained like Hiccup had predicted, and they looked like a deflated balloon. I removed the heart and cut out its muscles, letting the cold blood pour out, for even here the biting frost had penetrated.

Meat from the Heart tasted good and Gothi sometimes used it to treat illnesses and help convalescents heal. She said that it was good for the skin, to keep it moist.

The liver and the other things I sorted according to preference, generally trying to keep as much as possible, though I looked over the liver for bad spots. If there was a serious disease in the animal I wanted to know. There weren’t any, so I kept going.

The lungs had nothing in them but ruptured vessels and air inside them, so I left them alone.

The bladder looked empty, but I pinched it off anyway, wiping my hands off on the snow as a precaution.

The kidneys I didn’t take, though it was some people’s habit to eat them, I was not one of those people.

Some of the fat on the animal, for it was not yet deep winter, I would let Hiccup use to tan the skin. As for the rest, I would use it to prevent ‘rabbit sickness’, which usually set on when a viking forgot to take the oils with the meat. Those who suffered from it were weak and fitful to violent spasms of their large muscles, such as those in the arms and legs. Good fats would cure it within a day or so, though I withheld them from Snotlout once, but that’s another story.

I took the stick I had dangled the rabbit from and barked it smooth, and while I was flicking off the rot I noticed Hiccup putting two Y shaped branches on the charcoaling flames.

“I need those.” I said, before it was too late.

He gave them over easily enough, and made an O shape with his mouth when he saw what I needed them for, even if no sound came out.

I tried to shove one into the dirt, but the ground was too hard, so they didn’t go in. I pushed harder, until the base started to bend, and I gave up. I’d have to look at this from a new angle. Fortunately, I knew someone who was at his best when doing just that.

“Do you know how to push these in?” I asked him.

Hiccup shrugged and began to look at the problem. Who would be surprised if his hand went to his chin. There it goes. Told you.

“Can I have the dagger.”

“Don’t put in the dirt.” I almost growled at him. “That’s good steel.” I dried it off on my shirt, just to make the point.

“Well it’s not like I needed it anyway.”

He got up and started to pace around the fire. He looked down a few times, and once even kicked it to test it’s firmness. Needless to say, it didn’t work, though he didn’t go hopping off on one foot like Ruffnut did once.

He looked up after a minute, then started to dip the sticks in the snow, coating them in the powder. I pretended not to notice what he was doing and looked at the rabbit carcass, but soon I couldn’t resist the urge to see what crazy idea he was having.

When he pushed the bottom of one branch into the softer dirt inside the ring of the fire pit, everything clicked.

“Aha. I thought so.”

He puffed his chest up in fake pride, though he couldn’t disguise the bounce in his step that he was prone to every time he made an invention.

He tried to put in the other stick, but the place acrosst from the first pole was burning with heat, so he had to come over and reposition that one so that a straight stick would go directly over the fire.

In plain Norse, he forgot to do a few checks.

Soon his catch was being roasted on the sticks, spinning around whenever he wished, though some of the bark from the poles would occasionally hop onto the meat with a mind of it’s own, and I’d have to flick it off, which I didn’t mind.

The skin I was busy rinsing with cold water to make it malleable. If I wanted to tan it I might as well do it now, before the layers became stiff and unworkable to all but the most skilled fingers.

“Good idea. I could use some new socks.” said Hiccup.

“You appear to have a stuttering problem. You meant that ‘I’ could use some new socks. I’m the one who rescued you and kept you from dying in the cold after all.”

“But I’m the one who fell in the snow!” he pleaded.

“That’s your fault.”

It’s nice to have human company sometimes, even though they can be annoying. You never know how much you need to talk with people, to spend the time with, until they’re gone.

I took the last piece of the log from last night and stretched the pelt over the top, then took some of the oil from the rabbit and rubbed it all over. By the time I was done the rabbit was ready, the juices dripping in the fire, a pity if you ask me, because that means it’s dried out.

We ate dinner ravenously, though I saved a nibble or two from my portion for supper, as there was no other food left, Hiccup having consumed his serving, and no assurance that we’d snare more later.

After that we went hunting, going a different way this time so as to find fresh game that had not been alerted to our presence.

Our path took us above camp by almost a hundred feet, until we were at the base of a large hill that must have been as tall as fifty Hiccups, ascending at a steep slope.

Hiccup looked at me questioningly. I nodded. We could take it.

“At least we should see the rest of the island.” I said.

Our climb was not easy. There were rocks to trip on and holes to fall into, but we didn’t have any trouble getting up, so long as we were careful. Once the ground moved beneath my feet, and I had to jump to the side as several rocks came loose, almost hitting me. The soil here was unstable, even frozen beneath the snow.

When we were on top though, we could see the entirety of the island, or at least most of it.

From where we were standing I could see that we had landed close to the westernmost point, that I could see without turning, for our road had turned our steps north, and we could see the island end to end. I figured that it was about twice as long as wide, with a bay on the east side, opposite where we lived.

It had to be only a mile and a half wide at most, though that was only at a cape that jutted out from the mainland on both sides. It looked like a sword, and we were perched on the hilt.

Hiccup had the same idea.

“Sword island. That’s what we’ll call it. Sword island.” I said.

“Hmmm.” said Hiccup, rolling it around on his tongue. “It works.”

He sat down on a hummock that had had all the snow blown off, for the top of the hill was battered by ocean winds coming off the current, and I could almost taste the salt on my tongue.

I looked over our island, Sword island now, with an eye for more detail. The southern edge was rocky and inhospitable, for doubtless it had been battered by the waves, all the soft parts eroded and muddied, until only the hardest stuff was left.

The northern side was the complete opposite. Instead of rocks, there were beaches. Instead of crashing seas, the waves lapped at the shore like docile animals. Down the middle of the ‘blade’ there was only forest, broken by small, isolated dales and meadows, and a few more isolated rises like this one, though the land waved and rolled almost like a purring cat. In general it was cold, hilly, and inhospitable. Perfect.

I’m starting to think that Hiccup’s sarcasm is rubbing off on me.

We had turned to start the long journey down when Hiccup tripped over a brown rock that was protruding from the ground.

I let him pull himself up but when I skidded down the hill, he was not following.

“It’s time to go!” I yelled back at him, but he either didn’t hear me over the wind or he was ignoring me, I don’t know which one.

He had his hand to his chin, and he was looking down at the thing that had tripped him. I groaned and walked back up, not without skidding down some, twice actually, and almost ripping my skirt.

“I think you might want to see this.” he said when I made it up.

I looked down where he was looking.

“It’s just a rock.”

“It’s not just any rock. It’s an _iron _rock. Do you know what we could do with this?”

“Maybe. Just don’t get too excited. We don’t have the equipment to make anything with it yet.” I spurned it with my foot.

“Yet.”

I groaned again, but secretly I was delighted. We could make some tools, a spit for cooking food, a pot, some utensils, maybe even a new axe.

With any luck, things would get better, and maybe, just maybe, things would go according to plan.  The walk back had no incidents, but thanks to the food I’d had earlier, and Hiccup’s revelation, I felt much better, and the miles, which had before felt so heavy, now felt lighter along with my heart. While we were on the home stretch I even went out of my way to look for branches, not for firewood, but for shelter.  Even I felt the call to celebrate, and for supper we ate the meat that I had saved together, talking about the future. The future. What had once seemed so bleak now seemed bright and dripping with possibilities. 

That week passed like a dream, and it all seemed so idyllic when I look back on it. What happened after that.. well, you’ll just have to wait and see. 

* * *

**Published on AO3 Tuesday November 12th, 2019.**


	10. Sick to Her Stomach

**A/N:**

**I discover word walls. This phase is gonna continue for.... a while.**

* * *

Ocean opened her eyes and groaned. Her body, especially the right half, felt like someone had pushed hundreds of tiny needles into it and was busy putting in more with a hammer. She was on her back, staring up at the sky, which seemed to have tiny stars flashing through the clouds, in fact, every so often her vision would flash with flares of blinding white light, which made her eyes feel sore and strained, though when she closed them the lights didn’t go away, as they should if they were real. Even breathing felt painful, and she would be lucky if she escaped with only one broken rib. She tried to roll over to get in a more comfortable and less vulnerable position, but her right wing was bent at a bizarre angle, probably broken, and she didn’t have enough strength in her left to hold her body weight. At least she wasn’t bleeding

Even if she had had the strength, she would might have given up from the pain, if not from a lack of air, for every intake of it felt shallow, and her breaths came fast and hurt hard, impossible to explain other than to say she felt like every movement was tearing her apart. Ocean looked over at the snow covered ground and groaned in pain, though her groan was cut short also, and ended in more of a high-pitched squeak. Thankfully her neck wasn’t dislocated or, Gods forbid, broken. She thanked her ancestors for her miraculous survival and attempted to take stock of the situation through the fog of her pain and shock.

She must have sprained the joint of her neck when she hit the ground, she realized. At least it hadn’t broken or dislocated. Her right side had taken most of the hit, so at least her left was mostly fine, for separate from a few shooting pains in the bone, it was alright. The tail bone felt sore when she tried to move it, and most of her spines were broken. She wouldn’t be throwing them around for a while, not far. She certainly wouldn’t be making dead shots for a long time. That was the best news she’d had all morning, evening, whatever time it was.

Her legs were another matter. She dimly remembered trying to desperately use them to curb her fall but it obviously hadn’t worked. Her left foot hung limply from the ankle, using it would be futile, and her right knee, if dragons had one, was stuck at the tendon and refused to turn properly. All in all, Ocean was in very bad shape, for the wind chill would doubtless kill her, if not tonight, then perhaps tomorrow unless she could find her legs and catch some food. She would die slowly from starvation and hypothermia, gradually turning into dust until even her bones were unrecognizable, a monument to the power of the elements. She shook her head to clear it of the vision. Now was not the time to think about such things.

First things first, she needed to get up. Using the advantage of her shock to curb the pain, she braced herself against the ground and pushed with her left wing, while simultaneously overbalancing her legs to her right. Slowly but surely, she twisted over and onto her side. The pain had bite and it hurt like hell, but she was on her feet. There, she was standing. That was step one out of the way. Now to catch some food, any food, and get out of this wind, find a cave or something and hole up until Stulte could find her. That was a plan, and though it was simple, it was better than nothing. Now to start moving, a tricky business, what with her legs sprained and breathing making her tear up so that she never had enough air to move without becoming constantly winded.

Her tongue licked the air, smelling it for possible prey and possible threats, or perhaps even Stulte, coming to save her heroically, though part of her mind doubted that that would happen, at least not the way she envisioned it, swooping out of the sky in a graceful dive and offering her his claw. At least he had had the supplies and knew how to use them. Oh wait. Darn it! He had all their things with him, didn’t he. She could really use a splint right now, she wished. Not for the last time. She bumped into a tree with her chin, sending a pointed shockwave through her body, though it didn’t reach her wings. She felt the urge to claw into the stupid plant, but she couldn’t in her hurt state. Ocean ended up just leaning on it, regaining her wind.

She closed her eyes and savored in the short rest, which she knew couldn’t last forever, yet she felt the compelling urge to give up, lie down, and sleep. It would be too easy, she knew, a trap that most likely she would never wake up from. She needed to keep moving or she would perish. Still, she could smell no threats on the wind, and only a faint tinge of blood, which smelled like a rabbit’s, though she couldn’t be sure. It was like the little animals were born to die.

There was no scent of human, but she was still careful, just in case all the old tales were true. After all, an animal had just died, but the call of a hawk soaring high above her in the Big Is assuaged her fears. Hopefully she would be able to join that magnificent bird in its flight again one day, but she was getting ahead of herself. A great horned owl was perched in a hole in a tree, it’s feathers ruffling in the wind while it gave her that sleepily smug look that Carr was famous for, assured of its safety. It was young, but it didn’t lack in size and the only way Ocean had been able to tell it’s age was from the color of it’s down feathers, which were brown and not grey. Aside from her, that was probably, though not provably, the largest predator in miles if her nose hadn’t failed to smell something.

Ocean stopped slouching on the trunk of the winterizing oak and began to drift through the forest, her mind half present and not quite half somewhere else, as if wandering in her own, mental, lands. Dragging her left foot along, and hobbling all the way, it felt like she was getting nowhere. The soft snow was a help and a hindrance, as it numbed the pain and cleaned her wounds, but it also hid within it’s powdery masses nasty surprises like crevices to stumble on and sharp flints to cut her feet raw. Still she made some progress, as the ground was steadily rising, and the mixed oak and beech trees had turned to almost pure stands of cembral swiss stone pine, a sign that she had climbed a fair amount. How much, she had no idea.

She passed by a small gap in the forest filled with stones and a few boulders that were propping up a great grey slab that arched back to a place she could not see. She sighed, hoping that it was empty, for that sort of area attracted herbivores of their type, and she’d hoped to catch one. However, there might be a chance that there was a cave in it, and taking this chance, she stepped into the clearing, hoping to at least find some small hole to take shelter in and hopefully have a rest to heal her shattered bones.

Ocean saw nothing to indicate there might be a hollow space there from the front, so she walked around the pile with patient steps, for by now she had learned not to be hasty, finding no purchase against the granite construct. Just out of curiosity she tapped on the back. It had a deep, hollow sound, but the resonance faded away too quickly for her to be convinced, so she tapped again, and this time there was no mistake. There was a space in there, so Ocean decided to risk another search, patiently favoring her left leg. The crick in her neck had just about faded away, so looking around was not a problem.

She tripped over her defunct foot and fell head first onto the snow, filling her eyes with the white water. Ocean shook her head to clear her sight, noticing for the first time a dark hole in the rock pile, just large enough for a dragon to squeeze through if one folded its wings and crouched as low as it could go. She stood up, much more easily now that she wasn’t on her back, and tried to push herself in. Her head and shoulders fit, but her wings bumped against the granite, and that pricked. She had to quell the instinct to jump when she pulled her wings against her side and tried again. They slid through the frosted opening easily, and the rest was a piece of cake.

It was damp inside, but not cold, and the air had a lived in feel. There were a couple stones lying on the ground, where they were sure to irritate anyone who dared lay upon them, but Ocean thought that with a little work the place could become pleasant and perhaps even homey. No trace of occupation marred the floors and no scent lingered there unless it was her own. It looked like she was here to stay. At once sleep overcame her and she cast her broken body against the stones, not even bothering to move them out of the way, closing her eyes and forgetting all her troubles for a time, if only a little while.

She slept in a state of partial awareness, as all animals do, so that any out of the way occurrence would wake her. Sometime during her sleep the wind died down. She sensed this dimly. Ocean awoke sometime in the night, for she must have crashed in the afternoon, and rolled her wings slowly in an opposing circle. She felt needles in her wing again, and her legs were so sore that it almost hurt to move them. What she would give for a splint! But it was not just that which had brought her out of fitful sleep. She heard the crunching of snow by an animal very close by, and it’s scent was like rabbit. Better yet, it had not smelt her because of the wind direction, and from the smell it seemed to be just out of the door. She picked herself up quickly and began to advance, heavy (and limp) paws stepping in just the right places so as not to slip and attract attention.

But then Ocean picked up the irony must of blood, and she realized that along with the scent of dying prey was another, less strong smell, which she just couldn’t pin down to any single animal. She waited, knowing that any move upon her part might cause an attack on the unknown animals part. Was it a cougar or bobcat perhaps. In her state they would be more than a match for her battered body. A snipping sound rang through the air, like someone was attempting to use a viking pair of scissors. She lowered her head and peeked out carefully. Directly in front of her was a young owl, probably the same one she had seen earlier, and beneath it was its catch, a yearling coney.

The bird had probably caught its prey, which was now laying lifeless on the ground in a shapeless heap, somewhere in the woods, and then in foolish youth had decided to eat its catch on the ground here, as evidenced by the soft thump that had woken her up, now that she thought back to it. If only she could steal the coney to eat, then perhaps it would take the edge off her hunger. Normally dragons hibernated during the winter, and Ocean had almost been afraid to go to sleep, but all the flying had taken the fat off of her, and her body wasn’t ready to start yet. She wondered if she’d ever get the chance. Well, this would be a start. She made ready to lunge. The owl tried to intimidate her by growling, but it came out more as a squeak. As Ocean began to slide all of her body out of the cave, the young bird saw just what it was dealing with. It tried to run and take its prey with it, planting it’s talons firmly in rabbit flesh, but she was too quick, for even in her injured state she was able to catch up to the unfortunate hooter, snapping her jaws and taking the coney right from it. In the process she pulled the bird to the ground and stunned it, and if she had been a mite more blood thirsty its life would have ended then and there. Instead she tromped painfully back to her cave, and the confused bird flew away, shrieking like a banshee.

Ocean settled down and devoured her catch, relishing in the almost heavenly taste, and eating like one who has never eaten. She didn’t bother with tearing off the skin even, and within two bites the rabbit was gone, filling and not filling. At least it took the edge off of her hunger and would keep her until the next day. Unlike humans, who would gladly take their time cutting up a good animal and roasting it for no good reason, dragons were different and more, sensible. They didn’t waste their time, they didn’t waste their food, and they could eat faster. She scoffed at the thought. Most two-leggeds would ruin their food over a fire, or get rid of the head, which was the tastiest part because of the tongue, at least in her opinion. Amused at her own thoughts, she fell to sleep once again, a deeper sleep this time, and happily slumbered until the next morning.

When Ocean opened her eyes sometime in the morning, she was disoriented, almost thinking she was at home with Nayla tugging on her wing like she always did, for the sore tug in her left wing was confusing her brain. She basked in the comfort for a minute, wanting to sleep in, but eventually the pain on her right side woke her up for good. She took a good long look around, only half remembering where she was. Ah, there was the corner she’d curled up in during the night to conserve her warmth. And there was a patch of something brown and dusty, yet stuck on. That must have been rabbit blood. Already this place was starting to feel like home. She moved a few rocks out of the way with her tail, for they had been disturbing her sleep. With a little moss this place could become comfortable. But first, she looked like a mess, and the innate Nadder vanity called to her. She spent almost an hour rubbing herself in clean snow, straightening her spines and getting off dirt. She even found a branch low enough to brush her teeth on until they were shining pearly white.

With that done she was ready to move out, though she had her doubts about her limp foot, which she still couldn’t move. Her hunger had only been partially satiated last night, and she didn’t want to fall behind the curve, knowing that once she was too weak, death was certain to collect it’s dues. She accepted her fate and roamed off into the woods in a random direction, any direction, though she always kept track of landmarks, just in case she got lost. Before she left the clearing she marked all the trees with a special blaze, a hieroglyph that was supposed to be a rock and the sunset, though drawing left handed was not her specialty, and not being ambidextrous, the resulting chicken scratch was barely intelligible except as a dragons claw writing. Hopefully if Stulte came around while she was gone he’d see the markings and stick around in the hope of finding her.

Five hundred yards out she discovered an old rabbit trail that led east to west, and she followed it towards the morning sun. It was well worn but still covered in wintering brambles, as rabbits preferred their cover that way. Against a dragon, however, the annoying plants were just that, an annoyance preventing her from being quiet. After the what seemed like the hundredth time of her wings snapping a twig, she folded them up tight and started to walk heel first. It worked, most of the time. Of course she couldn’t stop the snow from crunching under her feet, but by working around the bush while loosely following the trail, she made some progress. She passed a large boulder shaped like a giant claw and put that down to memory. It looked rather funny, sticking up out of the snow as it was, and suddenly she felt the urge to polish it with some moss. She took a detour and walked around it, taking in the grey appearance of it from all angles. To her disappointment there was a crack on the other side of the ‘claw’ which made it less pretty than she had at first thought. It reminded her of her younger days, back when she was a baby tugging at her father’s foot and trying to play. Tears came involuntarily to her eyes and for a while she let them come. But there was only so much space for self-pity and so she shook herself off and returned to the hunt, once again stepping on the balls of her feet, for happily she had regained some control over her left foot.

The trail led on for a while before she smelled some fresh prey. It wasn’t particularly close and it was off the trail, but Ocean immediately switched into the ultra concentrated state which made Nadders such good daylight hunters. The path she had been following had passed a patch of mosses and a few other winter plants. She turned back and headed to them, testing the air all the while and making sure that no errant wind carried her scent to the prey, which she seemed to be getting closer to, as she smelled another rabbit, this time a doe. When she judged she was close enough she stopped for about thirty seconds, waiting for anything she hadn’t seen to burst out into the open. They apparently hadn’t heard her, for there was no raising of the alarm and no sign to suggest that they had been alerted to her presence. She continued her stalking in deadly silence.

A mouse squeaked and dove away from her paw, but Ocean paid no heed to it. She was after something more worth her time. There was a place where the rough slate became exposed and a snowbank rose opposite it, with a few bushes growing from the top. Hopefully it would disguise her shape if someone happened to look her way, but that would only work if she stayed absolutely frozen. Small game animals responded primarily to movement and scent. If she hunted around the mosses carefully enough she might be able to hide herself, and as long as the wind didn’t change she didn’t think they would smell her, though she wasn’t old enough yet to distinguish the different alarm pheromones. She could pick up a few more, older rabbits with the herd now, there seemed to be at least ten of them if she wasn’t mistaken.

The rock wall descended into a small gully, which she followed, pausing every ten paces to listen. As it was the valley led away from where she wanted to go, and after a little figuring she realized that if she kept going on this path eventually she would not be able to smell the rabbits, though whether or not they would smell was up for grabs, for her species had extremely sensitive noses, and all that washing off with snow earlier hadn’t been without reason, as it had washed off her distinct scent. Frustrated, she turned back, seeking another way up. As it was, she nearly stepped on her prey when she scrambled out of a hole in the wall. Only by tensing instinctively was she able to avoid detection.

One of the rabbits raised its head and deviated from his warren in an effort to get better food that hadn’t been trampled yet. Ocean figured that if she rushed, she might be able to catch him, for it was a male, before he ran back down a burrow. She shifted around when the rabbits weren’t looking, trying to find the best way through the brambles. She was hungry though, and her impatience cost her. When her shoulder hit a twig, it snapped and all the rabbits took a step closer to their burrows. Needless to say she was very much vexed, as for the next five minutes they all kept their ears up and only the does at the center dared to take a cautious nibble now and then, their bucks devoted to their safety. After a while, when they thought that the strange noise had been silent for long enough, they went back to feeding, all except the oldest one, an old codger who looked to be almost forty in rabbit years. He went back down his hole. Ocean crouched, legs wound to catch her prey unawares. Her design was to head for one of the bucks on the outer circle, or failing that, would chase the yearling on the outside of the ring, almost a futile endeavor without the crucial advantage of surprise, for the rabbits were speedy on the ground, especially against someone with a wounded leg and foot like her.

To herself she counted down.

“Three.”

Not one of the coneys stirred from their positions.

“Two.”

One of them hopped provocatively toward it’s home, intending to go back down the tunnel.

“One.”

Ocean sprang forward, launching her spikes at the same time. They cracked through the air, speeding towards their targets, but the moment they left her tail she knew that they were off, for she felt them detach almost backwards and go wild. The first whistled over the young buck as he scrambled to safety. The others flew away uncontrollably, one pegging a tree, another shattering on a stone, all adding to the rabbits confusion. She swung at the buck, her plan forgotten, but her right leg refused to respond, and she skidded left, seeing out of the corner of her eye that she was about to smack into a tree unless she managed to slow down. The yearling that she had been coveting tried to move out of the way, but he too lost his footing in the snow, and couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. One of the spines in her headdress speared him, and he limped away injured, leaving red streaks on the frigid powder. He would bleed out in a few moments because of the poison, if a heart attack didn’t claim him first. Ocean spread her wings and braked with them, barely avoiding the rapidly approaching trunk. She huffed and looked up.

A rapidly freezing trail of rabbit fluids led away from her immediate vision. The other animals had cleared the area, scared of the new predator. She pulled herself up on a log and caught her breath. Her ribs had probably reopened from their short healing spell, and once again it hurt to breath. Her wing was no better, though she saw proudly that it still shone, if it only reflected the shape of grey clouds. First, the hounded rabbit, which was probably dead by now after all the hullabaloo. She stumbled after it, following the clear trail to hopefully find it and kill it before something else got to the poor animal. It had to be close, and that only made her forced pace more salty as she slid along the path after the clear tracks. Soon the tracks became more forced, the steps closer together and more smudged. The poison had taken it’s effect, making the rabbit light-headed and slowly taking it’s blood, thinning it to the point where it started to flow into his lungs, as evidenced by the small splatters off the trail where it had coughed it up. This was the worst part of killing, the blood. Ocean kept her head down and reminded herself that this was necessary in lieu of having any fish to eat. At least fish didn’t look like dragons. They didn’t have big eyes to torture your soul with, and they didn’t have legs to relate with. She would prefer fish to rabbit any day of the week.

She found the rabbit lying down not quite dead, having lost the will to live. It peered up at her and in that universal animal language which is not spoken, asked her to make it quick. She did, but looked away. When it was done her appetite had completely vanished, and she had to remind herself that it was good food before her mind allowed her to eat it, and then only in sparing nibbles that made her sick, for this was no delicious meat that had been killed away from her sight, this was the real deal, and it made a knot in her stomach. When she was finally done she stumbled home, past the claw rock, past many other rabbit tracks that she would have ordinarily chased just for fun, but now she ignored. The Ocean who had woken up that morning was very different from the Ocean who threw herself on the doorstep that night.

It had started to snow, which would at least cover up her trail from any chance humans crazy enough to be out and to find them. Little did she know that someone had already seen them.


	11. Surprise!

“**A little box, without key or lid, yet inside golden treasure is hid.”**

**-? **

**You have to have the answer done in the right theme or it doesn’t count. I’m serious.**

**Last chapter’s riddle was solved by Dragon rider’s fury. It was Han Solo. Enjoy your victory cookie. **

**(::) **

* * *

I pulled my cloak in tighter around me. The wind didn’t care, digging under my skin anyway and sweeping a few handfuls of snow down the back of my shirt. The cold was biting more and more and so it made sense that Hiccup wanted to have more rabbit skins. That didn’t change the fact that I would much rather be at camp next to a cozy fire, even if it did mean helping him make one of his prototype forges. I stepped down into a snow drift which at first glance had only looked like another hillock. My legs already felt like they were dead and gone, so this wasn’t helping. Strangely enough, it was so nippy that my clothing was only frozen stiff, not damp with frozen ice water as it should have been. That was how cold it had gotten, but I wasn’t complaining. A viking shouldn’t whine about such things.

Right now I was walking on the trailing edge of a small rise in the terrain, checking likely areas for game. The slope made it an ideal place to dig burrows, and the lee side of the hill protected delicious grasses from being blasted by the snow. It was the perfect place to find deer and other herbivores, for to the right when one faced the rise was an easy running escape to a briar patch, and to the left was a particularly thick section of forest past a copse well suited to agile deer. Speaking of which, I saw one now. I ducked down and looked at him, though I was too far away and there was not enough cover to think of going after him. It was a young buck with growing antlers, the velvet still covering them. I just stared at him for a while before he noticed me, and stared at me back. This absurd contest lasted for a while, until he loped away from me, having finally judged the human laying prone on the ground was a threat.

I pushed aside a bough, but it only snapped back to whip me in the face. I thought of how snappy of a bow it would make, if only we had a string. We might try to use tendons from the animals we had and weave them together to make cord, but experience, painful experience, told me to let it go, as they would be too small. Tying on a good bowstring meant that the bow itself had to bend to make tension. If the thread was too short and the bow too long, well, I got quite a few cuts from just being near one when it shattered and threw tiny pieces that spattered everywhere, invisible to the naked eye, and nearly cutting out as well.

I felt like breaking the offending branch, but a hunter had to be quiet. Seeing as though I’d lost most of my stealth anyway, I supposed there was no need to fret about scaring off game, as I’d already spooked much of the forest. I reached out and gave an easy twist. The bough snapped off and fell to the ground limply. I looked down at it, lying there in the snow, and gave a snort of triumph.

“Not feeling so smart are you.” I taunted to nobody. Perhaps the wilderness was getting to me, I worried, but then shrugged it off. At least I had Hiccup for company, though he wasn’t very talkative at best, and his mouth shut like a clam at worst. Getting in a hundred words a day in conversation with him was a minor victory. I say conversation because he tends to ramble.

I found a small gut cherry bush with some of the pits pf the fruit still hanging on by a thread. They’d obviously been eaten by the birds and left to dry, though I did find a berry in the dirt, it was mangled by some ground feeder. The hardy berries were hard to kill, but even they had their limits, as a little further on I saw one lying on the ground, it’s stem snapped by a combination of some small animal, rabbit perhaps, and snow and the cold had taken their share. The wind had become softer, and only moaned gently when I bothered to notice it, for now I was deeper in the copse, which was only around ten yards in width but much longer. It was a good windbreak and the last time I’d come up here I’d used it to take a quick break from traveling and even eat some dried meat that Hiccup had made at camp on our new drying shelves.

An ingenious design if you ask me, for instead of letting the smoke just pass through the machine, he recycled it, and caught the ash in the bottom of a small tin he’d found washed up on the shore when he’d gone fishing, which failed spectacularly, but that isn’t the point. We reused the heat to keep us warm. Overall, it was a decent arrangement, my only complaint being that the ash exits on my side, because of course it did.

There was nothing on the ridge at this time of day, for rabbits were most active in the morning and at nightfall, and I'd already spooked the deer. That wasn’t the real reason I was out here though, probably a mile from camp. That was because of the dragon tracks. A couple days ago I’d found them when I had been exploring and got tangled in a light snowstorm. I’d holed up to keep warm and when I came out there had been a dragon trail just twenty feet away. It had been a limping Nadder for sure, for there were three toes like a bird, but the two hocks on the back of it’s foot had pressed into the snow, so I’d known it was a young adult for sure, even if the easily compressible powder had messed with the tracks, for the distance between them was about the distance one would expect if it was a young male, out for food. Its left foot had skidded all over the place and I was pretty sure it’s wing was broken because of the broken twigs everywhere. Nadders are usually stealthy, and dragons in general settle down during the winter, whether to hibernate or just to conserve energy, so finding one still wandering around in the dead of winter meant that there was something wrong with it.

When I’d found the tracks they were still ‘hot’, less than thirty minutes since the print was laid for sure. I had been hiding from the storm in a crevice in a small valley that led away from a favorite feeding place for rabbits that I’d scouted earlier. After I realized that it must’ve passed by me by only about twenty yards with me only having a dagger to keep me from becoming shapeless mush in a dragon’s stomach, I made a silent prayer of thanks to the Gods.

I looked up at the clouds. It was all grey up there but a patch of much darker sky worried me. I could see the half-shining, half-misted snow coming down from the sky, lagging behind it’s parent, which was growing fast. A short blizzard, but a dangerous one nonetheless. I didn’t want to end my life by falling off of a cliff I couldn’t see just because of a storm messing with my vision. I couldn’t get home before it struck so my only option was to sit here and wait it out. It shouldn’t take too long before the front passed through and the milder weather wrested control. Then I’d be able to see again. I gathered some downed branches and some bark almost without thinking and found a nice dry spot underneath a large conifer tree that had sheltered the ground from the encroaching winter. I reached for my belt, where there was a sewn skin which held all of my tinder, which I gently formed into a ball and indented. I found some smaller pieces of wood and struck easily on the flint, which had also been hanging on my belt via whittled clips, a convenient gadget which had also been made by Hiccup. After my second try the fire lit and I blew on it mildly, for I didn’t want to scatter the tiny flame. I added bigger and bigger twigs to it until I had built it to a soft blaze which radiated gentle warmth. I made a quick pass with my fingers and yawned, reaching for a small log and placing it on. Now I could rest easy, though sleeping was another, more dangerous matter. The branches curled down around me and formed a tent of sorts, though they were covered in snow. The shadows flickered and danced endlessly as the fire crackled, and the leaves swayed gently in the mumbling wind. It was beautiful beyond words that I have to describe it, a completely ethereal experience which even now makes me hunger for the occasional walk, just to do absolutely nothing but enjoy nature.

The snow started coming down outside the copse but it didn’t bother me, for the trees protected me, even though the wind blew hard west, trying it’s level best to freeze me. The windbreak held up to the wind’s advances, like it always had, and I drifted off to the moan of air rushing through the pine fronds, seemingly without a care in the world, despite my best efforts. Just before I was about to really fall asleep, a snap broke my reverie, and my hand went to the hilt of my dagger, ready for anything. A few more snaps and cracklings came and I stood up, looking around me with the light of the fire which had quieted down and was now flaming gently over it’s own embers, though I threw on a bit more fuel just in case. I could see something moving behind the cover of the trees, but I couldn’t quite guess what. I craned my neck and moved around to get a better view. The stranger seemed to be doing the same thing, as they had stopped moving so much and whoever it was was making slower softer movements. I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a dragon yet, or even if it was a person, they might be unfriendly, so I took a fighting stance, hands ready to let fly my knife with deadly accuracy. Maybe it was just a cat prowling around and there was no need to worry. Better safe then sorry though. I couldn’t hear any more movement outside, but I stayed tense. Finally getting tired of the game I stepped forward and ripped open the fronds which made up the ‘tent’.

Only to be faced with a dragon’s head looming far above mine. My combat instincts kicked in and whatever I’d been thinking before was replaced by the need to survive. I kicked up snow as I rolled away to avoid the inevitable blast of magnesium fire which would burn me to a crisp if I stayed still. I made a perfect recovery, ready to go on offense and do what was necessary. Queerly the dragon stayed still, only turning its bird-like head to look at me. In the flickering firelight I could finally see what I was fighting. It was that injured Deadly Nadder, for sure enough it’s left foot, my right, was dragging, and it’s right knee looked strangely bent, though I couldn’t place what was wrong. Looking up to the body, I saw that the wing was broken, hanging crookedly and lifting up and showing the broadside whenever there was a gust. I noticed that whenever this happened the dragon winced perceptibly. I had been wrong about one thing though, for the shining scales were blue, a female color in these dragons. All this and more I registered in a moment, for if I had to stand still (which I was doing) too long, I’d die. My legs stiffened and I waited for an opening, circling the dragon, which hadn’t done anything other than turn to keep it’s head pointed at me.

Instead of opening its wide mouth and blasting me to oblivion, or raising the poisonous tail and nailing me with spikes, for I had no shield, it just watched me. I made no sudden moves while I planned how to take it down. I might be able to stab it in the throat and make it bleed out if I could avoid the defending tail and the spines it would throw. Still it made no moves to attack me, which baffled me. Then an idea came to me. I jumped away suddenly, hoping to startle it and coax it to fire. The dragon stiffened but then relaxed. Was it so badly injured it couldn’t attack me? That might explain it’s unexpected behavior. Then why didn’t it rush me and try to snap my bones? It could certainly run, though not fast. Was it sick? I certainly didn’t want it to come to camp and wreck it. The only way to get rid of this thing was to kill it, but I certainly wouldn’t like to try, not without my axe. We just stared each other down, me with murder in my eyes and it with no fear, almost passive. Sooner or later one of us would have to make a move, and if it didn’t attack I might have to. I noticed that it’s legs stirred uneasily and made a feint lunge. It didn’t react.

I stepped closer to it, intending to take advantage of its unresponsiveness. I took one step, and then another, and I was about to make a third when it threw its spikes. I jolted back, but it hadn’t been aiming for me. Where the bony spines had impacted there was a half-circle, perfectly traced in the snow. The message was clear, if I stepped past that line it would kill me. I stood still, not sure what to do in this situation. With it’s injuries, perhaps it was afraid of overexerting itself. Suddenly it started to cough and shake its head violently, the angle of the orange firelight giving it a sinister look. Some ice fell off a tree branch and sloughed to the ground, making a soft thump and throwing small clumps into the air behind the dragon as it finally regurgitated the front half of a rabbit out of its mouth, nearly throwing it into my face. I sidestepped and it landed at my feet. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I didn’t move. Charging I could handle, and I could probably make it if it threw its spikes, though that was chancy, but conventional dragon knowledge had nothing on this. The Nadder snorted, as if expecting me to do something, I didn’t know what. I looked down. I might get hungry on this island, but I wasn’t going to eat anything that came out of a dragon’s stomach. To prove my point I took out some jerky and ate it, chewing pointedly. It stamped and turned its back on me, walking away until it was lost between the trees. I stood there for a minute before coherent thought came back to me.

That was possibly the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, I thought to myself. Curiouser and curiouser. Maybe it was a ploy to make me let my guard down. I’ve seen tricks like that before. They’d run, and then use the terrain to glide up suddenly from behind you and swallow you up. It had happened before, so I let my jaw hang loose and listened, turning my head from side to side like a hound. All I could hear was the distant crashing of brush, away in the same direction the dragon had gone when it stomped off. Well that was new, I thought as I walked back to the fire.

The downpour had nearly petered out, and I’d have to go home soon, too distracted to be hunting. Sure enough, the snow died down, leaving a fresh, sweet smelling forest that looked crystal clear, though the sun was setting behind the cloud cover, creating the illusion of blue powder hanging on the brush. Not quite believing what I’d seen, I packed up all of my stuff and started home. The wide copse exited to what could easily be called a plain, rolling hundreds of yards every way I looked. I trudged through it, careful not to let any of the new snow fall into my boot. What used to be a flower crunched under my boot, reminding me of home. I hoped to make it to camp before nightfall came and I might as well have stayed with the fire I’d already made. It began to sprinkle again, though the flakes came down not so heavily. I managed to catch one on my tongue on the first try, though it was just for fun.

I walked into camp and immediately unhooked my flint and tinder, putting them under the firewood shelter Hiccup had woven. At the moment he was busy working smaller branches into our home, trying to make it snow proof. I ducked in and kicked my boots off onto the thankfully dry floor.

“Catch anything?” said Hiccup absentmindedly.

“No, but I did see a deer.”

Something in my tone caused Hiccup to be concerned, for he looked up and asked, with more interest in his voice,

“Why not? You are the great Astrid Hofferson, the infallible after all.”

“I’m not infallible you know.” All this was avoiding the point and we both knew it.

“I can’t see any deer here. Have they all suddenly turned invisible?” remarked Hiccup. Ah, sarcasm. I punched him.

“Hey! What was that for.”

“You should know. Your tongue will get you in some serious trouble someday.”

“I should’ve realized it earlier! You only keep me around because you need me.” his hands flew up to his head and he fainted in pretend distress.

I sighed.

“I met a dragon.”

“Did you kill it?” Hiccup asked, getting up. “We could use the meat, even if it is tough and stringy. I also assume you haven’t brought it home yet either.” More sarcasm.

“It’s complicated.”

“Didn’t want to fight it with just a dagger, huh. I could make you a crude axe, given a couple of weeks.” Another unspoken question answered. I hate when he does that, but not really.

“I wasn’t afraid of it, if that’s what you’re saying.”

Hiccup cringed, already wary of my punches. Despite his usual carefree nature, he did have some common sense.

“No. That’s not what I meant. Please don’t kill me.” he said, though he was slightly exaggerating my destructive tendencies.

“It just.. acted weird. Like it was diseased or something.”

“Did it lose its balance?”

“Yes.. No. Maybe. It didn’t attack me like I expected it to. It was injured though, so maybe it was conserving strength.”

“That’s strange.”

Hiccup went pushed a twig into a hole, then took a scoop of dirt and stuffed that into the cracks of the weave. Our hut was steadily improving thanks to his efforts, and I could no longer feel the chilling wind that used to go straight through my skin, though it wasn’t stuffy either. A shelf of jerky was weaved into the wall, the meat stacking as high as it would go without toppling off. I could see some ash on the lip of our stone smoker, which was hard at work with something Hiccup must’ve caught in his section, or perhaps one of the last loads of fish.

We had realized that on an island as small as this if we hunted the game too hard in one area it would take a long time to bounce back, for if by some ill fate we had to spend the next winter here, it would be be a shame if we starved to death for lack of meat. I personally don’t think two people could do that to an entire island, but Hiccup has been right about these kind of things before, and I respect that, if grudgingly. Our camp had gotten bigger, and now we had a taller woodpile, thanks to Hiccup figuring out how to cut down a tree using fire. We tested that on a small cedar, which fell, but we weren’t strong enough to carry home. After that we kept it to saplings which were too big to fell with a dagger. I didn’t want to waste the limited metal I had on wood either, so it was overall a better arrangement.

We ate mostly rabbit, but I’d caught a small turkey, which we would probably finish off for dinner. Fish we didn’t have in large amounts, mostly due to Hiccup’s reluctance to trot all the way to the beach, fish there in the cold for an hour, and return home, most likely with not much catch. Still, the haddock were hungry before the permanent ice set in, and most of the time we had a baited hook out, we’d get a bite. For bait we used sparing parts of a hibernating frog he’d found in the frozen mud one day, but we were running out of that too.

Hiccup wrung his fingers before putting away the new section of house he’d been weaving, and looked up at the nearly dark sky.

“My fingers feel like sausages. Guess we’d better eat dinner.” he said.

I made no objection, and sure enough, the last of the turkey was soon reheating over the fire while we warmed up and began to unwind. Hiccup, who still had his boots on, crossed his legs and put them next to the fire to defrost.

“Colder and colder. You’d better get those sleeping bags done.” I said.

“Only if you could actually catch something to make them out of.” he grumbled, but he didn’t really mean it.

“At least I’m better at hunting than Snotlout.” I retorted. “Remember when he got hung over before a hunt and nearly speared Stoick?”

“And the time he nearly got a tattoo of a mug of mead.” said Hiccup, getting into the swing of things, completely forgetting the argument.

“Boys will be boys.” I said, then added, “No offense intended.”

“None taken. What do you think he’s doing right now? With me gone, he’ll be the Heir. I think it’ll all go to his head. At least you’re not around to hear all his flirting. Then we’d all have to fear for our lives.

“He already drives me crazy.”

“So how do you hold it in?” asked Hiccup.

“I got revenge once. I was about thirteen when he got sick with the pox, I was Gothi’s apprentice at the time, after Lard died.”

“I remember that.”

“So there he was, sitting in the bed, unable to move because he’s too sick, and I’m dangling a bowl of the cure right over his nose.”

“Good times. I wish I’d been there to see it, but I must have been in the forge or something, because I’ve never heard of that one till now.”

“Do you think he misses us? He is Snotlout after all.”

“Sometimes he can be more than just the ‘best viking in the entire world.”, Hiccup waved his hands emphatically. “When you dig deeper, he’s got a good heart. No matter how many times he cracks jokes at my expense, and no matter how many times he helps the twins prank the village, he wouldn’t hesitate to protect all of us.”

“But he’s so… Snotlout. I don’t think he’s got that in him.”

“He did save me from a particularly bad joke from Tuffnut though. Remember when they dumped acid down my tunic?”

I shook my head.

“He bought me a new one. At his expense. He can be better, it just takes the right situation.”

“So find a way for that to be all the time, because his flirting is going to cause me to go insane one of these days.”

Hiccup began to answer me, but a burning smell reached my nostrils, and his too by the look on his face, which was all screwed up. I looked over at the turkey and saw that half of it had fallen off of the stick roasting it and was turning to a black crisp in the heated coals.

“This is just lovely.” said Hiccup, “Perfectly good food, wasted.”

He pulled up the bird by it’s cooler head, which had held on by a hair and prevented the whole thing from being ruined.

“So now what? I don’t mind toasted food, my dad is a terrible cook, but what will you do?”

“I’ll manage. But toasted is an understatement.”

It was true. Most of the skin was impossible to tell from the ash that was dusted all over it, concealing the marred surface of the actual meat. I took a stick that had been laying around, rubbed off the bark, and started to peel back the skin, trying to salvage what was left. This made me really wish we had some utensils and not just our fingers. One layer of skin was being stubborn and I had to grab the hair follicles with my hands to pull it off, slicking my hand with sticky oils as I did so. I knew that wiping my hands off on the ground wouldn’t really help, but I couldn’t help doing it anyway.

“This makes me really wish for soap.” I said, still trying to get the grass to absorb the brown mess on my palm somehow, but not succeeding.

“I could make some,” Hiccup offered, but it would smell.”

I wondered what my family would say if I ate at the dinner table like this, just with my fingers, no salt, no fork and knife, no tablecloth, no nothing. I’d get kicked out in a jiffy. See, even we vikings have standards. The Outcasts don’t count, because they’re outcast. Get it? Anyway, it really was getting on my nerves, not having anything to clean my hands off with except rabbit skins, and even they got saturated.

We ate silently, like farmers do after a long day of hard work. There was no talking, just an eerie silence which we both accepted and did not disturb. Finally I put down the last bone, and a moment later Hiccup did the same. He laid back and let the meal digest, and not finding anything on my mind at the moment, I followed his example. Nature abhors a vacuum, and humans are no different. Finding Hiccup not so talkative, I began to ramble endlessly and almost without point.

“The ocean ought to freeze over soon. Hopefully we’ll get rescued, but I don’t see that happening unless it’s tomorrow, or the boat will get stranded too. Stuck on an abandoned island with only a little food and a rogue dragon.” I chuckled half heartedly. “Our chances don’t look too good. But then again if we can get enough fish to last us through the winter, maybe we’ll make it. Did we put a notch on the stick today? This must be day three that we’ve been stuck here, I think.”

“Four. It’s day four, I just forgot to mark it down.” mumbled Hiccup.

“I should do that soon. At least we have a roof over our heads here. Remember that seven day blizzard we had last year? We’d be icicles, unless we got lucky. I’m feeling lucky today, because I *yawn scared off a dragon. I could do that all over again, it wouldn’t be too hard, not for me.” My judgement was clearly clouded. “That thing is a danger to camp at any rate. Suppose it gets into our food, what then? I don’t want to starve to death, nobody does, but we’ll manage some how, or I’ll have to hunt it down before it steals something, I suppose. We’d have enough time for that if I started tomorrow. Should we?” I asked Hiccup, who was half-asleep, his eyelids drooping lazily, hastened by the warmth of the fire.

“We have to catch more fish before the sea freezes and we can’t get any more. Maybe it can wait till the day after that or something.” he said.

“And you’ll make some soap?”

“And make soap. I’ll get to that once you do something useful.”

“As long as you don’t sleep in.” I shot back, though I didn’t get a response and didn’t expect one.

I smiled at his ‘resting’ form and got up to put on some firewood. Shaking off the sudden fatigue that had settled into my bones, I manhandled a few logs and dumped them on the fire, then crawled into my own corner and tried to fall asleep. But some part of me just wouldn’t let that happen, and I squirmed, trying to find a good position. I tried putting my head on my arms, but that wouldn’t work, and then I curled up into a ball to keep warm, but I was too hot already, so I threw off my coat and laid on top of it , letting the breeze brush through my hair. My skin felt itchy and it was too uncomfortable for me to get even a wink, so I decided to take a quick gander outside. Time is a strange and malleable thing. When you’re having fun or doing something dangerous, it flies and the sun is down before you know it and you have to go home. But other times it just crawls like a snail and you can’t help but look at the sun every thirty seconds, and perhaps you start counting the minutes in a vain attempt to make them go faster, or maybe even you count yaks to pass the hours. This was one of those happenings, and I was sick of it.

I stepped out of the tent and found myself in a pristine winter world, unbroken by trampling feet on the snow that was sparkling, even in the limited moonlight of this extremely rare night. There were no clouds, and the full moon glistened like a giant sapphire floating in the sky, untouchable by any human means, and inspiring to the faint of heart. I may or may not have had yet another poetic moment. After a few breaths of the clear air I ducked back inside and pulled up my cloak, letting my eyes close, anticipating the next morning.

It felt like the next moment that I rolled out of bed and into our new reality. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and looked up. Hiccup was already awake,with his legs crossed and a smug expression on his face, which I would have loved to wipe off with a well placed punch. He reminded me too much of Snotlout when he did that.

“Guess how high the sun is.” he said.

“Not up yet.” I groaned a bit, still suffering from a touch of morning sickness, though it was wearing off.

“Almost noon. I wonder who’s slept in. Not me.” He wagged his eyebrows sarcastically.

I recalled our conversation from the night before and mentally slapped myself, even if I couldn’t afford to show it.

“You’re pulling my leg.”

“Sure, sure. It’s not like there’s light streaming into the tent or anything. And I didn’t have to shake your head off just to wake you up.” he said, but then added, with a little more sincerity in his voice, “That dragon must’ve really shaken you. Your face looks a little worse for wear, almost bleary I’d say, but then again it’s a bad idea to insult you, seeing from all the bruises on my arms.” 

He chuckled nervously.

“A reputation well deserved.” I said. “How long have you been awake?”

“About two and a half hours or so. I went fishing and I was actually just making breakfast. I shook you awake so rudely because I didn’t want to do room service.”

I kicked off my cloak and reached for my boots, which Hiccup tossed to me. I caught them and began to put them on, but my  getting my heel  in was a tight  squeeze. It wouldn’t go in without a fight.

“Is it just me or are these boots getting smaller? Because this is getting annoying.” I said, pulling on the my second shoe in an effort to shove in the back of my foot.

“I think you’re getting bigger, and the boots stayed the same size. They look the same to me.” he said.

“They don’t feel the same. Maybe we can make it bigger?” I asked.

“But then I’d have to put off knitting the blanket, which is something I really don’t want to do. I was chilled pretty bad last night, and having something extra on would help with that.”

“I see.” I rubbed my chin without thinking about it, then pulled my hand back, hoping Hiccup wouldn’t notice. He did.

“Looks like I’m rubbing off on you, your worship.”   
“Very funny.”

“I’m just pointing out the obvious.” he said.

I  was about to make a  witty comeback when I smelled something awfully familiar waft in on the air.

“If you don’t want breakfast to be a repeat of last night, you had better check on the food.” I said.

Hiccup’s face droppe d and he looked down at the fire sitting just outside the doorstep. He jumped forward and began to tend to the fish which was currently roasting itself to tiny black pieces.  I was slightly amused, but I helped him wrangle the superheated haddock off the fire and onto the special rock I’d cleaned off and used as a dinner plate for the both of us.  I dragged up a stool and waited for it to steam off.  True to Hiccup’s word, the sun was waxing easily towards noon, though it gave no heat, it was nice to know that it was actually there and not just a memory. The mosquitoes had gone at least, but that was only a minor convenience  compared to winter’s great hardships.

“So,” Hiccup began, an awkward end to an awkward silence. “What really happened out there, with the dragon you know? Whatever happened messed with you, and I’d like to hear about it.”

“It’s a long story.”

“We have time. It’s not like we’re on a deserted island with nothing to do.” Hiccup pressed.

“I suppose I’d better start then. Remember yesterday’s storm? I took shelter in a copse of trees and lit a fire. Underneath a cedar I think. The fire caught the dragon’s attention, because I heard some rustling in the brush. I thought it might be a bobcat or something, prowling his territory, so I left well enough alone. After a while the noise stopped, but I thought that was suspicious. I saw something through the trees, and for a minute neither of us made a move. Then I got tired of the game and ripped away the branches between us.”

“I can imagine the look on your face.” remarked Hiccup.

“Yep. But you’d be running away screaming. At least I held my ground.” I said, playfully insulting him.

“No.” he scowled.

“What about the night you went out with one of your contraptions and then got nearly crisped by a Nightmare.”

“That was an isolated incident.”

“Or the time you got creamed by a terror. You were running away with it hanging on your back.”

“This is getting embarrassing. When we get older you’ll spill my secrets to every youngster on Berk, and don’t deny it.”

“Maybe. But on with the story. There’s a Nadder right in front of me with it’s head poised to blast me. I rolled out of the way, but this is where it gets weird. First of all, it doesn’t try to crisp me. It just stands there, as stupid as a yak. No breathing fire, no spikes, no nothing. Just staring at me. I think it must have been sick, because it had some injuries. A broken wing, and a leg that was bent the wrong way.” I said, then added, “It had a limp foot too.”

“Did it have any blood on it?” asked Hiccup, “Bite marks, stains on it’s scales?”

I shook my head.

“Maybe I didn’t see them. It just followed me with it’s head, and turned it’s legs when it needed to.”

“Did it have a far away, glassy look in it’s eyes? Sometimes that’ll happen. Perhaps it was following you by sound because it was blind.” He pulled at the almost nonexistent hair that made up his beard. Maybe it would become noticeable within fifty years or so.

I thought back to the incident. I certainly didn’t remember any of that, but you could only trust your memory so far.

“No.”

“Then I think we can probably rule out that it was sick. Maybe it’s just acting defensive because of your reputation.” he said with a twinkle in his eye.

“I circled it and tried to bait a couple of shots. It’s like it didn’t want to kill me.”

“What happened then?”

“I tried getting closer, see if I could get a reaction.”

“Sounds like it might have been baiting you instead.”

“It didn’t like me getting too close. I was about… five feet away when it fired it’s spines. I dodged, but they weren’t aimed for me.”

“And that’s when you messed up your reverse tumble.” said Hiccup.

I paused, not sure if he was trying to make or reference or what, but when he shrugged his shoulders, I continued.

“The spines made a nice circle in the snow, four feet from it’s head. Personal space issues. And then it started coughing up something, like it got a case of the flu.”

“So it was sick?”

“I didn’t say that. It coughed up half of a rabbit and threw it at me with it’s tongue. I moved out of the way, but it still landed at my feet. It’s like it wanted me to eat it or something. Like a peace offering. I’m not eating anything that comes out of a dragon’s stomach though.”

“Good choice.”

“Stop interrupting me. _As I was saying… _I didn’t know what to do, so I just stood there and waited for it to shoot me. Or at least do something. I was having a stare fight with a dragon at that point, and just when I thought it was going to try and stomp me, it turned around and left.”

“Can I talk now?”

“Yes.”

“So if it’s not sick, and it’s not attacking, why don’t we just let the matter go. If it has a broken wing and can’t fly, than why not just leave it to starve to death. It wouldn’t put us in danger and the problem would go away on it’s own.”

“Because if it gets hungry enough it’ll come for our food stores.”

“Right.” said Hiccup. “Speaking of which, my fish is cold. Typical.” He sniffed.

I sighed and picked up the haddock. It still tasted good, if a little gritty, but it was much better than last night’s fare. A bone nearly went down my throat but I spat it out on the grass. I’d pick it up later.  The rest of the fish I finished with three bites, as sleeping in this late had made me ravenous.

Hiccup finished his share earlier than me, having taken a smaller piece, and immediately headed over to the fire pit, where he started to scoop ash into his palm.  Using his left hand , oddly enough, but I didn’t have the time to worry about that. 

“Making soap?” I asked.

“Yep. We just don’t have a container to make it in. Did anyone ever teach you to whittle? I could use the help.”

“No.”

“Mmm. That makes it harder then. If you could make a bowl to hold the lye and the oil together than that’d be great. Otherwise,” He shrugged, “I’ll just have to do it.”

“I can learn.”

“On the fly? You know what, never mind. Just don’t cut off your fingers. While you’re doing that I’ll render some of the rabbit fat. Which I can’t do without a bowl.”

“Life is coming full circle.” I said.

“Lovely. Here, I have a knob from a tree you can use.” He threw it to me from where it was sitting by the fire, in his little workshop area. “I thought it might be useful. It’s softwood, so it should be malleable enough to carve.”

“Alright.”

“While you’re doing that, I will look for some more bait, because we ran out of tree frog yesterday and I need some more.”

He got up and huckster ed around, not exactly sure about what to do yet. After some thought he bent down and took some of the rudimentary fishing gear. Our wooden hook (Yes, that’s for real) and it’s stone weight, as well as the rabbit intestine that passed for string around here. He slung it over his head and tromped off to the forest.

“What do you think you’ll find.”

He shouted something back over his shoulder that I couldn’t quite make out.

“Guppies!” I asked.

Hiccup sighed and turned around all the way, cupping his hands to his mouth, letting his gear fall to the ground.

“No. I’m hoping to find some frozen. Grubs! There. You got it?” 

I nodded and he humphed, picked up his stuff and trotted away. I picked up my knife and began to work, all the while forming plans in my head, and passing the time, waiting for him to get back. A week ago I wouldn’t have touched him with a ten foot pole, but now that we had an understanding of sorts, it was easier to get along. Before I started whittling though, I needed to cut a notch on the day stick

* * *


	12. The Hidden Plains

**Brought to you courtesy of the servers of Archive of Our Own, written by myself.**

**Riddle of the day.**

**I move every second, every minute, every hour, I have 3 arms but no body. What am I?**

* * *

Ocean peered at the sky for what seemed like the millionth time. A little speck appeared in her vision, but she blinked and it disappeared. She sighed and scratched an errant scale off her foot, which was healing nicely, she liked to note, though it wouldn’t completely fix itself without proper care. Well, no need to cry over spilt milk. Her legs just wanted to move, and she shuffled them  backwards and forwards to ease the outcry.  Since getting home from the… incident, she’d been quite nervous, as the long, scraping marks on the rocks showed. There was nobody to talk to and nothing to do, so why did she feel so active? The best way to describe it would be to say that she was having jitters, but just recognizing the fact didn’t make it any better.

Perhaps a little fire would help. The inside of the cave certainly looked cheerless, and not at all cozy, so perhaps a little fire would help. She stretched her jaws, revealing her pearly white teeth (once again, Nadder grooming), and exhaled easily with one practiced motion, spraying a whitish orange liquid onto the floor. It acted like a torch, lighting up the room and all it’s cracks and crevices, including one that she had opened up to improve the air flow, so that when she did things like this it wouldn’t be so suffocating. Now the little hole looked more like home, and she settled down a little, her tail relaxing and slowly drooping to the ground, a prime mark of a dragons feelings. The tiny flames burned on for a little while, until they slowly vanished, one by one turning into little grey dust.  She didn’t fall asleep exactly, she just rested to be precise, letting her muscles and memories catch up to circumstances and pondering over the events of the day, like she had so many times before. The difference now was that she actually had something worthwhile to think about, unlike before when her thoughts were mainly occupied on childish  things and not on matters of importance .

She had been hunting, minding her own business when the snowstorm came. The cold  winter didn’t annoy dragons as much as it did humans, but that didn’t mean they were immune, especially at the joints,  and even more especially from wind chill . Her foot had been getting a tinge numb when she spotted the perfect copse of trees, a perfect line connecting from one prong of the forest to the other. Hoping to find refuge from the  blasting snow which was starting to freeze up the blood in her wings, she took cover in the woods, coming in from the east side ,  as a stubborn deer had taken her beyond her normal haunts  (she never caught it).

Just when she was about to fall asleep she saw a blinking light through the trees. It might have been human, so she watched it intently for a minute. Not daring to send out any calls of greeting, in order to avoid triggering a potential viking threat, she decided to investigate with her eyeballs. Her nose she couldn’t use, as getting far enough west to be downwind of the flames would take her out of the windbreak, which she didn’t want to do. Ah foolish youth. So impulsive. Trying to be stealthy but not overtly stealthy, she slowly walked towards the unknown flames, for a fire it was, from its constant flickering and changing she could at least see that.  She glided past a few boughs, trying not to break them, but impatient nonetheless. This happened a few more times until she reached a log, which she nearly tripped over. Instead of stepping around it, she kicked it to the side, softly, but it was still a kick. It rolled into some brush and snapped a few twigs. She cringed at the sound, but unwound when they stopped. Ocean was a little distracted after that, which made her miss a seemingly innocuous twig laying there on the ground.  When she stepped on it though, a hundred ice tendrils within it’s hidden part shattered, making a loud cracking noise. Shoot, she thought. Well, no point in being stealthy anymore, unless whoever it was happened to be hard of hearing, she would have been detected already.  She listened to see if she could hear any movement. Other than the crinkling buzz of the falling snow, which she had already gotten used to, and her own wildly beating heart, everything seemed f ine, and quiet as a lark as well.  She crept forward, legs poised to dodge any possible attack, but there was no response from the fire’s owner.  She paused right in front of the branches which concealed the fire, mostly, from the outside world, and wondered if she should step in. The fire was concealing any possible scents, and so no alarm bells went off in her head when she couldn’t smell anyone there.  Still, a small voice in the back of her head kept telling her about all the bad things that could happen to her if she went in. She tried to dismiss them, but it wasn’t exactly easy, what with this weather  making her spine tingle. She wanted to step forward, but her mind was so conflicted that her feet didn’t budge, so confused they just shut down. Great. Now what.

Apparently a fight, because just when she was about to push the branches aside, a feisty human did that for her, and she was holding a knife. Things were about to get interesting. Ocean used the way of defusing situations that her father had used, not backing down, but not making eye contact and trying to look nonthreatening. She tilted her head and instantly the human, viking by the looks of the spiked skirt, flipped away, probably anticipating a fire attack. It began to circle her, probably looking for any weaknesses in her defense, though it made no sudden moves, but Ocean twisted along with it, looking to parry any strike, or to simply be on her footing if worst came to worst and she had to get out of the area quickly. It looked vaguely interested in her injuries and she instinctively shielded them, preventing it from slashing at them and making them worse. All she wanted to do was get out of this confrontation and go home, but it looked like the human was going to make doing that difficult. Suddenly it jumped away and skidded backwards on the snow, making a perfect two-point landing. Humans didn’t like putting their claws in the cold stuff, she thought, though she was uncertain as to how she knew that little fact.

She stiffened, but then relaxed, as she remembered that she was supposed to look nonthreatening. Ocean saw how easy it would be to rush the human down, to crush it, but didn’t. Suppose there was a viking tribe around there, and they found this girl laying dead. She couldn’t fly, and would be easy prey for anyone looking to kill her. Not like they wouldn’t do that without provocation anyway. The human made a quick lunge at her, but it was a feint, and it stepped back after only the lightest of stops. Ocean made sure that it had pulled back all the way when she threw her spines, but not at the human. Instead they hit the snow in a half-circle only six feet in front of her, marking her personal space. The human crouched to leap forwards again, but didn’t attack, evidently accepting her declaration. They stood still, each one eyeing the other warily. So much for not being a threat. They circled each other a little more until she, finally bored of the game, decided to give a peace offering and be done with it. She inhaled all the air she could muster, just to keep her from running out of breath, and then coughed, her face contorting into a strange shape, not unlike a hedgehog. Embarrassing but worth it, unless the human stabbed her in the throat during the ordeal, which she was trusted not to do, because of the honor rules (for a later chapter). Speaking of which, it had stayed where it was, not running away, probably anticipating what she was about to do. 

Almost half of a rabbit came up her throat like a cow chewing it’s cud, only less gracefully and with much more force. She spit it out at the human, who was a bit far away and hard to reach. The spines had done their job. It sidestepped the flying sponge of dragon drool, but it bounced off a tree limb and landed at it’s feet. Ocean looked on, waiting for the inevitable move. Would it take the offering, or would it refuse, kicking back a perfectly good meal. In the grand scheme of things this encounter probably wasn’t very important, but it felt to her that the fate of the world hung in the balance.  The girl, that much she could tell, didn’t do anything, just hastily looked down at the rabbit when she thought that Ocean wasn’t looking. She waited, and waited, and even waited a little more, but  it made no moves.  Thanks to the language barrier, the little thing could no more understand her then she could understand it, but some motions were universal. She turned  a half circle , hoping to provoke an agreement  from it’s fear and bring it to the table , but  still it didn’t move. Must not  of taken the bait. She huffed and marched away, careful to conceal her tracks. The encounter had warmed her bones enough that she could make the trek home, but not without catching a wood mouse first, which she swallowed easily, its warm body finding a new home in her stomach.

So now she was home, bored out of her  brain , and that didn’t look like  that was likely to change anytime soon.  Sleep was what she needed now, if she didn’t find a way to botch that too. Her mind kept flicking back to the strange encounter. Had she offended it somehow from a rift between their two cultures? It was a viking after all, but couldn’t even they see common sense sometimes? She’d probably messed up when she threw the rabbit too hard and it almost beaned the human. She’d have to become more careful. That was it, must have been it, and her mind could not fathom the possibility that someone might not like rabbit fresh from a dragons stomach. At least if they wanted to they could cook it,  in a pot or something. Her thoughts wandered over to the fir e and it’s occupants, and whether or not there were more of them than the little human cared to show, there had to be, must be, and soon she found herself instinctively turning around and eventually, falling asleep. 

Her dreams were private that night, and thus I, the narrator, am not allowed to share them, though guesses can be made.  Nevertheless she slept soundly and awoke with not a sore bone in her body.  This time she was used to her new surroundings and didn’t miss a beat, scratching off all of her dull scales on an edged piece of granite in the back.  She swatted her head back and forth in the snow, clearing all the sleep out of her eyes and making them less itchy. Now for a toothbrush. Being in the middle of a forest meant that it was easy for her to find a branch to use. That didn’t mean that it was all that easy to find one that  would either not get stuck in her gums, or would actually clean. Finally she found the perfect match, an oak twig, though for us little humans it would not be right to call it a twig, as it would nearly be the size of one’s arm. Child’s play to a dragon at any rate.  She clamped it in her jaws, suddenly having an idea, and brought to her home, which was just a minute away. There she began to chip away at a rock, somehow with a plan in mind, and began to  chat to herself,  mumbling along until she was loud enough to be heard.

“And this goes here….” she said as she chucked a stone shard into the snow, and sifted some of the milky dust into a corner.

Finally after a bit of work she stepped back and admired her work, which was just a hole drilled into the weaker sandstone bits of the cave. Then she took the branch and gently let it fall into the hole, with only it’s end sticking out, and then pulled it back out with her teeth, which though shiny, were not quite shiny enough. She did this a couple of times and then pulled it out for the last time, dunking it in the snow, perhaps to clean all of the grit off, but stopped and then brought it to her teeth, brushing them as funnily as a dragon can (don’t tell her that,  but seriously. Imagine someone trying to scratch a mosquito bite on that upper part of their back where they just can’t reach without a back scratcher and you get the picture).

Wishing she had a mirror to look in, she settled for the next best thing, brushing extra hard. At this point her fangs were so white that they might as well have been blinders. Oh well.  Finally she took out the now extremely frayed bough and placed it in the hole she’d made, where she would have easy access to it. A built in toothbrush holder for her needs, though some of the regular comforts would have to wait  for later. At least it wasn’t so boorish anymore.  She yawned, not feeling like hunting that day. She still had some food in her crop and getting food could wait. At the same time she didn’t want to be bored,  and sitting still seemed like the best way to rot her brain out of her skull. There were no birds to watch, unless you counted the seagulls flying over her as such, but their screams and calls were not interesting to her. Perhaps a visit to the beach? She could dimly hear the waves rolling up against the shore, calling to her. After all, she was named Ocean for a reason.  But that wasn’t a subject she really wanted to bring up and she blocked out the possibility of going to the sea. The thing about time is that it’s always passing, and if you have the patience to wait it out, something interesting is  always bound to happen.

So it was with her. A doe scuttled in front of her, it’s white tail up and ready to run. Knowing she couldn’t catch it but still enjoying the chase, she followed it. It ran, but did not bolt, and she kept after the illusive animal, which was always showing itself  to her, yet tantalizingly out of reach.  After a while she slowed down, ready to let it go, but oddly the deer stopped running too, and dropped into a light trot.  Just out of curiosity she took a long jump at the creature. It lightly increased its pace, seeming to keep only thirty yards between itself and it’s pursuer.  She crossed a frozen pool with one large step, the fresh air doing wonders for her health. Faintly she wondered if she’d ever been so energetic back at home, and then realized she hadn’t been, even without this bum leg. The snow crunched easily under her footsteps and the sun twinkled through the thin wispy clouds,  making a rainbow floating in the sky that her father had once told her meant bad weather. That was something she’d have to ask about when she got the chance, because usually when there was a rainbow it meant that the storm was over.  A breach opened in the clouds and the full extent of the white light hit the forest. 

Ocean noticed that she had stopped to admire her surroundings and looked back towards where she had seen the deer before she had spaced out.  It was still in front of her, though closer than before, and looking at her disinterestedly. She took one last look at the snow hanging from the trees in little balls and walked on, though she was constantly  peeking at the amazing scene.  It was impossible to ignore it, for all she knew, someone had taken summer and instantly frozen it in a coat of undisturbed ice, preserving it forever. She looked up at the deer. It almost looked like it was huffing, and reluctantly she carried on.  Soon the sound of rumbling waves drew nearer, and she wondered if the deer was going to take her there, indeed, she caught a quick glimpse of a sparkling shoreline, but the deer turned west and soon the beach was lost in the trees. 

Now the ground began to slope up, not heavily, so that it was hard to walk, but enough for her to feel it in her legs  as she climbed. They began to meander on some unseen path, presumably to keep them from going up a steeper slope, for the walls began to close in around her, so that she could only see in front of her and to her back when she turned around, and faintly up the hill she could see a patch of boulders, so that she took caution with her steps, careful not to tread too heavil y on the ground, which strangely was free of snow. Cold loving plants dotted the valley, making it the most alive she had seen since she’d crashed here.  Still the doe carried on and soon Ocean could see that they were beginning to make it to the top. She looked behind her, to the east, and she could see what looked alarmingly like the pommel of a longsword, though she convinced herself that the island could not hurt her,  still she  allowed her body to be heedful.  Somehow the snow had either not penetrated here or had blown away. Slowly the trees became shorter and more ragged until they looked like little bushes, hiding under rocks from the drying wind. The height would have had any city  slicker gasping for breath, but again, the perks of being a dragon. It would appear that they were on a large bluff, which she had somehow missed during her exploration of the island, though strangely there was no snow cap on it (I need to design my islands from the start instead of making it up as I go). 

Suddenly she almost tripped over nothing, as she had not been paying attention to where she was going. How ironic. She flapped her wings forward and  jumped back , though they hurt like crazy from the unexpected strain.  The doe was standing at it’s usual distance, also on the rim of what was  one of the largest craters she’d ever seen, making the Queen’s lair look tiny in comparison. It stretched almost  a mile  and a half in every direction except north, where it was pinned by the shoreline, doubtless rising out of the sea from some unknown subterranean landmass.  The bluffs surrounding them fell steeply down to a plateau almost five hundred feet or so below her, and  Ocean felt very small in comparison to the winter majesty all around her.  How come she had not seen this before? Her question was answered when she saw that the east and south sides of the crater were higher than the north and west sides, covering up the concealed plateau from any prying eyes, though the other sides compensated with their sheer steepne ss. The plateau below her was as flat as a dish on the bottom but looked rather more like a bowl. There was a small bit of forest in it but most of the place was plains, dotted with black dots that could be possible prey,  meat to satisfy her hunger, which she had built up climbing the hills, for she had easily digested her food on a journey she had not been expecting . As she looked on the deer scampered down the bluff, leaving her alone to do what she wanted. 

The first thing  Ocean did was look for home, just to make sure that it was actually still there. Up here she felt almost as if she was flying, but she well knew how long it took to travel without the use of her wings, which took away from some of the grandeur,  but it was enjoyable nonetheless.  She ran her eyes along the place where she thought that home could be, but she wasn’t able to find it until a gust of wind guided her head in the right direction, where she could now clearly see the little place where the trees bent apart and revealed a crumbling pile of rocks. She felt a small sense of shame overcome her, that her new home could be in such condition, and she vowed to fix it up when she got back. Then curiosity overcame her and she looked around the island for any human settlements. She didn’t see any, though with their penchant for cutting down every tree within fifty yards should have made them easy to spot. What now? Was the person she’d met earlier from a ship that had landed here? If it had been there last night it might have left because of the clearer weather, perhaps. That must have been it, for she could see no settlement anywhere, though it wouldn’t hurt to check the other side of the rim. 

Deer forgotten, she began the equally long trek  to the bottom , careful not to aggravate her  already tender leg  wounds any further  by slipping or breaking a foot on the way down.  The slope wasn’t entirely bare, for there were the remains of last year’s  lichens and wild flowers littered about where ever she cleared away the light dusting of snow, and once or twice she swore she say some mountain goat, manure, in little round pellets littered around here and there.  They were slowly rotting, but the breeze swept away any bad smells before they reached her nose.  As she got closer to the base of the plateau she noticed that the ground underneath the snow was mostly covered in  the tattered remains of grasses . Concealed Plains would be this place’s name. It needed a little work, but other than that, this would look like paradise come summer.

The rest of the morning and part of the afternoon she spent exploring, though there wasn’t much that wasn’t available to see at first glance. The small wood in the western corner was pleasant, but not as noteworthy as the yaks she found wandering around. She ogled them carefully, not wanting to bother chasing them, but still she could not prevent a little saliva from filling the bottom of her mouth, underneath her tongue.  What really piqued her interest, however, was a whitish mound in the center of the crater. She walked over to it, hoping to find out what it was. It looked like any old pile of yak bones, but she knew better from the claw marks embedded in it’s haunch, and the broken spine in a convenient place showed that something had killed it. The other yaks were keeping a very safe distance, hoping that they wouldn’t be next. 

Ocean didn’t have very much experience out in the field, but she could tell that some pack of animals had killed these. Wolves, or some other pack animal, but most likely wolves. Hopefully they weren’t still around, or things could get messy. As she stepped away her foot crunched on something. She looked down. The scarred carcass of a calf lay on the ground, presumably next to it’s mother. As she looked around, she couldn’t help but see that there were more of them littered around the place on the ground like guano on a sea stack. How had she not noticed this before. She knocked about a little bit more, but none of the kills looked to be less than a year or two old, thankfully. It was still a scary thought, that there might be other predators on the island. Her uncle had battled a pack of coyotes once, and what was to say that she might not be attacked. In this injured state, she wouldn’t be much of a match for anything that wanted to get its claws on her.

A chill crawled up her spine and tingled in her neck. She waved it off, but she couldn’t help looking over her shoulder every now and then, just to make sure she wasn’t being followed. She didn’t want to be paranoid, but just to be safe she kept out of the trees, knowing that in the case of an ‘incident’, that they would only slow her down,  catching on her wings and preventing her from making a getaway. Fighting in her case was a bad idea, as evidenced by the extra blue spot on her foot. A sprain.  There was something creepy about th at place, and though it was teeming with wildlife, as evidenced by the m ice under her feet squeaking indignantly, she certainly didn’t want to actually live  there. Suppose the wolves came back and she was in their territory? She sighed, though she didn’t smell any scent marks, which were supposed to be regularly maintained. Hopefully they had died out or met some other fate, or had suddenly become meek and not fierce. She laughed at herself, but still, the fear remained. 

The food was just too good to pass up though, and soon Ocean found her legs trotting up and to the entrance which the deer had shown her. Making sure that she wouldn’t turn her foot on an errant stone, albeit absentmindedly, she began to daydream. A near miss with a tree brought her back to her senses, and she vowed to be more careful, especially with tracing a map of the path in her head. Until she could fly, the only way to get into the crater without getting tangled up in a berry bush was to follow the way up that she had miraculously been given.

Keeping her directions in mind, it felt like no time until she was off of the steep incline and onto flat ground. Then it was simple. She walked east until she judged she was at the right spot, then turned left and skipped home, happy to be back. She missed it by nearly two-hundred yards, but her curiosity over the last several days had paid off, for she was able to pick up on the terrain, reading it like an open book. 

She stood there, not really knowing what to do and in a sort of daze for a while before she picked up her train of thought.  She ran her memories over again and then remembered that she was going to do a winter cleaning, which she started, albeit slowly, and not making much progress. She took several pine cones and blew gently on them, releasing only a small measure of the heat stored within her body. The closest one burst into flames, but the others only dried off and exuded a calming, cleansing scent. She flipped them onto her right foot and carefully placed each one in one of the small nooks that filled her home, though she did drop two at one time once, and it was a hassle to only get one back on her toes again. Eventually she solved that problem by taking them both and leaving one, since it she was more able to slide only one cone off than only take one. She felt like kicking the wall a little after that, especially since it had wasted so much time. Ocean looked up, but not at the sun, not wanting to make her eyes burn and possibly give herself a headache. It had barely moved. Whelp. 

She began to hum for no good reason, perhaps to pass the time, but her tune was one of her favorite songs when she was smaller, and now that she was out in the big wide world it seemed right to return to what was familiar. She didn’t recall the words, but the music was soothing to her, and eased her aching bones, which were still complaining about her climb,  not wanting to go down without a fight and certainly not making it easy. Still, by the time the sun set, her renovations were complete, and her home was almost completely and totally draft proof, while still being able to take in fresh air should she light a fire. The fresh smell of cedar filled the cave, and for the first time on this island, Ocean felt truly happy.

The same could not be said for  two of the other islanders, who at that moment were running for their lives.

* * *

**Review or the Wookie will rip your arms off. On that happy note, this chapter we are officially passing fifty thousand words. Whoot Whoot! Smiles. **

**So, do you like the cliffhanger? See you next time. **


	13. The Nail in Our Coffins

**A/N:**

**WORD BRICKS. It gets better in the second half of the story.**

* * *

I looked at my work laying there so innocently on the bench, wondering how such a simple thing could be so difficult to make. It was a bowl clearly, but the rim was jagged and filled with splinters waiting to impale themselves on me should I slip while carrying it. The inside was unshaven and coarse, but at least I’d been able to sand the outside of it with the sharpener I used for my knife, which worked well enough. For pine wood this stuff was very hard to carve. You’d expect this kind of behavior from their needles, not the wood. Using my dagger on it was like trying to cut a rock with a dull saw blade. Eventually I’d carved out a divot in it, and chipped away from there, making a little progress. Not without the hard spikes of the knob carving a hole in me first. Now I was done with it, but by that time Hiccup had already been back for thirty minutes or so, trying not to laugh. I was wrestling with the evil wood! Why is that so funny? Although some part of me admitted that it must have looked hilarious, I didn’t want to say that out loud, so I just sulked, not really doing anything productive.

I looked over my shoulder, feeling that someone was looking at me. Hiccup had stopped laughing and was stealing concerned glances at my back, but when we made eye contact he blushed and looked away, trying to make it like we’d never seen each other. We sat there, not really knowing what to do, until my cuts began to itch and I rubbed the skin around them, trying to distract myself from the situation at hand. Hiccup began to ease up too, for he took the ashes he’d piled up earlier in the fire and cupped them in his hands.

“A little help here?” he said, shaking his filled hands a little.

“Fine.” I said, “But you’ll have to come over here first.”

“Getting lazy are we? Wouldn’t want that to happen.” He put the ashes in my crude bowl, then reached for some of the last clean snow close to us, wedged up in a corner. Excoriating it wasn’t too hard, and soon he had taken some of the heating stones out of the fire and placed the bowl on them. It browned heavily, but fortunately didn’t catch.

“Did I do it right?” He asked me.

I shrugged. I really couldn’t remember how to make soap. It had seemed such a short time since we had wrecked here, but we couldn’t have been away from civilization for so long that we were forgetting the basics, right? Hiccup answered my questions, at least one of them, when he spoke up.

“It’s only been six days, but it feels much longer than that.”

“Six days doesn’t feel right to me.” I said

“But I notched first thing in the morning.” Oh.

“And I made another one while you were away.”

“I’ll find a new stick while this is cooking up then.” he said in a firm voice. “Don’t want to run the risk of messing up again. It’s too easy to lose track of time here, all alone.”

I threw one to him that was on the wood pile, some of which was right next to me. There wasn’t going to be any real snow from Hiccup’s predictions, so some days we indulged ourselves and moved the day’s fuel out of the shelter early. He caught it with grace and sat down, holding his hand out. I gave the knife to him and he made five notches, from the bark, almost to the core of the bough, then stripped off the extra layers that had been sloughing off slowly, which was all stripped and thrown to the fire, which blazed happily and then settled down to it’s usual state of comatose embers.

I watched the snow become transparent as it slowly melted, accelerating faster and faster until it turned into a grey puddle at the bottom of the bowl, nowhere close to filling it up. Hiccup got up to find some more snow away from the fire, for we always made sure that our surroundings were never wet, hypothermia being the problem it was up here in the cold northern winter. He brought some in his fingers and dumped it, then warmed his fingers over the fire, looking over at our tent as he did so. I knew the reason very well. He had tried to make gloves overnight, but it hadn’t worked out and he ended up wasting some good sinew. Now he was wishing that he’d managed to make it work out and now I had to distract him before he kicked himself too hard.

“I could teach you how to sew better.” I offered.

“It’s not my skills, it’s the needle. Rabbit bone just isn’t cutting it any more.” he said, then added after some thought, for his mouth worked a little and his hand went to his chin, “Did you see any deer antlers though. While you were hunting?”

“Up near the hill, yes. After we found the iron I did a little scouting around.”

“I’ll get them this afternoon then.”

“I could do it.”

“You’re a better hunter than me, and you’ll need the space to carry stuff home, space that would be taken up by giant deer horns. Besides, I didn’t catch very many fish. Only two, and I think they’re the stragglers of the migration. We’re going to need more food than that if we want to make it till spring without our ribs poking out like spines.”

It was meant to be a joke, but the possibility was all too real to be dismissed, and we sat in morbid silence for a time, Hiccup checking the lye solution every so often.

“Maybe that wasn’t exactly the right thing to say.” he said sheepishly.

I ignored him and stretched out my legs, which I couldn’t feel very well any more. If we really were running out of food, I needed to be able to find more, and I couldn’t do that with sleeping feet, at least not very well. I smiled inwardly at the thought, but it still didn’t remove the morbid effects of Hiccup’s bad joke. Our earlier conversation was nagging at me, and I wanted to say something, but my mouth refused to open, at least until I forced it to.

“You can’t expect to get the antlers while you’re making soap, Hiccup. I think I should do that. Besides, I’m bored.”

“What are you talking about again?” asked Hiccup.

“The needles to make gloves.”

“Oh, that. Getting food is more important, but I see your point. Take your knife with you just in case you see something.” Left unsaid was that I might run into that dragon again, and perhaps not be so lucky. The incident had to be viewed as a fluke, there was no other way to see it, unless somehow the blood thirsty animals had suddenly all turned into giant chew toys or stuffed animals. It’s impossible to know exactly what goes on in those big brains of theirs, which can sometimes weigh up to fifty pounds. Enough reminiscing, it’s time to go.

I picked up my dagger, took my coat off its rung, where it was hanging by the scruff (you never knew how important the little things are until you don’t have them), and trudged off to the hill, hoping that my memory served me well. If I was mistaken, well, Hiccup wouldn’t want to be around for a bit. I didn’t like wasting time. I finally managed to slip my arm into it’s coat sleeve and then trudged out of camp, going straight ahead and feeling the ground rise underneath my feet, pushing the trees higher and higher in front of me. A few trenches dug by earlier snow melts exposed some of the roots, some of which were swollen with water. They reached down into the ground, passing through the snow, which was covered in twigs and other tiny pieces of the forest. The frozen remains of a mushroom poked out of a fallen log that had been struck by lightning, as I could see from the black marks that spread out like the veins in a plant leaf, coming up from both sides, both top and bottom, where Midgard’s magic had come to meet the handicraft of Thor. Beneath it lay a small, unassuming hole, where a wood mouse had dug into the snow and made a tunnel, or some other closely related animal. As I watched a built up overhang of snow fell on the tunnel from a bough, rendering it useless. The branch snapped up, free of it’s weight, and swung, whistling gaily as it passed through the air in a wild bid for freedom from the tree which held it in it’s tyrannical grasp (I’ve always been a sucker for anthropomorphic characters).

I stopped to rest, leaning against the very same tree that had the rebellion problem. The offending branch hit another, peaceful citizen, and before I could move a load of snow was on it’s way to my coat. Fun. Fortunately, not much made it down my shirt, and I was alright, if a little mad. If I’d had my axe I would have given the tree a nasty gash, in the bark of course, so as not to send more snow my way from the impact. Instead of following our usual path up the hill, I turned and walked perpendicular to the rise of the terrain, planning to run on the edge of the treeless border and thus find a rub line, where a buck would scratch off the itchy velvet. Usually they would come back to the same spot when they were about to shed their antlers, at least in my experience.

A gull’s screech echoed off of the hills. Like the fish, it was the last straggler in nature’s great exodus to the south. I watched the little black dot float away on the air currents, then wheel and swoop down again, only to rise on a gust. Then it disappeared behind the myriad of branches that covered the sky, and I lost sight of it in the great expanse of sky.

I returned to what I was supposed to be doing, searching for deer antlers, or even bones that wouldn’t snap when knitting through any of the fur that we currently had. Soon I found a young sapling that had had all of its bark scraped off on one side, and some of the wood was damaged underneath its protective shell. There were no tracks for me follow, but I had been expecting that, the snow covering anything which stood open to the sky in a protective blanket, which made my job quite a bit harder, as antlers were, well, white. At the base of another trunk was a place where more of the bark had been taken, but a closer look revealed that it had been gnawed off by something small. I looked up at the actual tree and noted that it bore apples. Not that that would do me any good right now.

Having lost the trail, I went back to the original sapling, hoping to find some more clues. When I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, I struck out in a random direction, hoping to find anything that would point me the right way. The biggest organic thing I found in that part of the woods was a rabbit carcass, picked almost clean and with only its ribs and head sticking out of the snow. I made a big circle, fifty yards in diameter, hoping to see a trace that I might have missed earlier. Failing that, I returned to the original lead, then passed it, taking almost the exact opposite path that I had before, but with a small turn included. This was on purpose, as the possibility that this was the first tree on the velvet run was small enough to be almost completely discounted. I walked about a hundred yards, but found nothing. I was about to give up and find new territory, frustrated by my error, when I saw another tree with a scrape on it. I made a large circle around it, but I only completed a quarter, because I’d found another one. Finding the general direction of the line was easy enough, and soon I was trudging along, passing a velveted tree about every hundred feet or so. That might sound small, but in the woods it’s easy to lose your sense of distance. But I didn’t find any antlers, and my previous elation turned into disgust. The buck that had made this line had curved downhill to avoid the windward side of the hill, and now I was walking in the deep forest with only the crunch of my own boots to keep me company.

A rustle shook the silent tree tops, and I paused, ready to draw my dagger at need. A brown patch that seemed to float above the snow caught my interest, and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Suddenly it hopped. I had forgotten some of my most basic lessons about small game, at least about rabbits. I almost laughed out loud. See, in the wintertime some animals will shed their old coats and grow one made of white instead, because their summer and fall colors stick out like a sore thumb in the snow. I was looking at a rabbit that hadn’t lost all of it’s old fur yet, and it had still fooled me. At the moment it was only ten or fifteen yards away, a perfect bow shot for any skilled hunter. If only I had one of the weapons. Not wanting to risk throwing my dagger and losing it in the snow for a chance at it, I stomped on the powder, making a loud, ringing noise that didn’t quite echo but was still loud enough for any animal but a deaf one to hear for a mile. Sure enough, it ran away while I watched. Part of my mind whispered to me that I should have taken the shot, that my aim was too good to miss, but with the cold clamping on my fingers I couldn’t be sure that I’d hit.

Frustrated, I kicked the snow in a random spot, hoping to find something by chance. My foot found a rock, but my spiked boot dug into the ground and flipped the little thing up and over onto its side a few feet away, causing a plume of snow to fly up and make little dimples in the snow where the tiny flakes had hit. But in one particular spot it seemed to outline something. My feet were weary, and I made no haste in getting to the place. Brushing away the snow with my finger really made me wish that I had gloves. But there in the snow lay a huge antler, though it was only half of a normal buck’s rack, it would still serve my purpose. It was perhaps two feet tall, but only about six inches wide. Now to carry it home in the cold without gloves. Fun. I might as well have stayed home, but that would just be putting off vital action. Besides, if I didn’t take it, the rodents would eat the calcium rich bone for the nutrients, which was probably already happening. I turned it over and inspected it, and was pleased to see no bite marks marring the surface. At least this would make Hiccup happy, if nothing else.

He would be done with the soap by now at least, that was the good news if my memory served me rightly. We didn’t have the equipment to make any hard bars, so we’d have to contend with the soft, pudgy stuff, at least for now. The problem with that kind was that it smelled awful, and we’d have to keep the fire up for a long time, just to drown out the stench with wood smoke and ashes. Ironically, I’d have to get the scent out of my clothes using that very same soap. The thought of a nice bath after… what, almost two weeks since our last wash day, because of the length of the voyage? Come to think of it, we missed Laudgardur at the Meatheads too. First two weeks without a cleanse and then a shipwreck on an island filled with sick dragons. Tell me we haven’t been jinxed by some witch and I might not believe you, because our bad luck definitely seemed a little over the top for it to be only a normal occurrence.

A bony antler pricked me behind the jaw and dumped all of those thoughts out of my ears. I shifted it from my shoulder to the crotch of my left arm and left it there, but it wasn’t done yet. When I stepped forwards, the huge thing poked me in the back of my thigh. The more I tried to ignore it, push it out of my head, the more I felt that dull itching sensation wherever it chose to poke me. I shifted it around to whatever position felt more comfortable, but it kept getting in the way. After a while I just gave up and put it on the top of my head, where it was still swinging back and hooking my coat. I didn’t have the energy to move it from up there, so I left it on the top of my skull as I dragged my (poked) feet along the home stretch. At least the torture would be over soon and I would get some much needed rest. I might have to hunt at some point, yes, but it would only be a short break. Hopefully. Those things had a habit of turning into naps, which turned into overnights, which turned into ‘where did the time go?’, when you woke up in the midmorning well after sunrise.

Sure enough, a rotten milk smell curdled my nose as I got closer to home, and I wrinkled it, which was hard because of all the frozen mucus up my nostrils and even sinuses. Have I ever mentioned that I don’t like winter before? No, no apparently I haven’t, because it’s still freezing out here. I sighed as I trudged into camp, setting down the antlers I had spent so much time and energy to find on one of the two makeshift benches we had, the other being in the tent where Hiccup had put it.

On the bench was group of relatively clean leaves, wrapping something square and cube like in a coat of brown. It didn’t smell very good though. A bowl, my bowl, was cooking up more of it over the fire, while more clean leaves decorated the adjacent rocks, which were more grey than usual with soot and needed a good scrubbing. In the center of it all was Hiccup, weaving something together using maple withes, those long feeler branches that lend themselves so well to that craft. He looked up, saw that I was present, and went back to his work, presumably to finish what he was working on, as it looked nearly done from what I could see, which was not very much because his arms were in the way and I could only see part of the webbing. It looked like a trap of some kind, but I was too tired to ask him about it for now. Other than that camp hadn’t changed much on the surface, other than the general pile up of junk that comes with civilization. Hey, at least we’re coming up on the charts now. At some point it would reach the point where we would need to do a spring cleaning, but that was a long time away, and I only let it nag a dark, dusty corner of my mind where I didn’t often look.

Well, there was one thing that had changed. There was no snow on the ground inside the cove, and I kicked off my boots to find that the ground was pleasantly dry and while not warm to the touch, was not cold either. That was nice to know, I thought as I moved my boots from where they had landed on the floor (muppet me), to right on the doorstep of the fire so they could steam off the excess moisture trapped in their soles. At that moment Hiccup set aside his contraption and hunched up next to me, warming his hands with the air currents like me. He glanced over at the table and saw the antlers. The next thing I knew he was giving me a discreet thumbs up. I mirrored him, and then bumped his fist gently, just because. We both smiled at each other and for a moment it was just me and him.

“Are you alright? You took a long time getting back and I was getting a little worried.” he said.

“Don’t worry about me. You know I can handle myself.”

“But you can’t handle me and my madness.”

Neither of us moved, until I released a breath I hadn’t even known I was holding. He turned away, and the schism shattered between us, letting me finally breathe. We were so close, and then we pulled away, just to give ourselves some space. Where once I had wanted to talk to him, now we had an… understanding between our minds. Without speaking, Hiccup took the trap, for that was what it was, and baited it with a special kind of moss.

He left it on the ground there, and reached for my hand. He was obviously taking me somewhere. I took it easily, and he pulled me up from where I sat.

“I know a better place to be.” he said, lightly jumping onto the ledge next to Protection Rock as he did so. For the first time I could see that there was a large cleft on top of the boulder, with just enough space for two, maybe three with a squeeze.

“Wanna come?”

I stepped up before him, and found the most comfortable place.

“Hey, that’s my spot.” he said, climbing up after me, but there was no edge in his voice.

The view was beautiful, and I wondered why I had never come up there before. I turned and to my right was a white glade, filled with the sweet smelling air. To my left was the forest, with tiny ice crystals hanging on the branches like little snow globes. Behind me was a downward slope that lead to a flat plain, from which fell steep, yet not tall cliffs. The ground filled everything and the earth was everywhere, making this part of the world timeless. I wanted to take this little island and keep it forever.

A song, out of place yet perfectly in harmony, came to my lips, and I let myself sing, softly. There were more verses than what you see, but this is all I remember of it.

_Summer in the hills,_

_Those hazy days I do remember,_

_We were running still, _

_Had the whole world at our feet, _

_Watching seasons change,_

_Our roads were lined with adventure, _

_Mountains in the way,_

_Couldn’t keep us from the sea, _

_Here we stand open arms,_

_This is home where we are,_

_Ever strong in the world that we made,_

_I still hear you in the breeze,_

_See your shadows in the trees, _

_Holding on memories never change.”_

We sang on for a long time, until eventually the world became grayer, and I fell asleep in Hiccup’s arms.  I dimly remember him carrying me down to the house and laying me down, but that is where I fell asleep. 

My eyes fluttered open early the next morning, with light gently streaming in, the sun’s light reflected by the white snow awaking me. I took my time rising, for I felt none of the usual need to stretch. Hiccup wasn’t there, and neither (when I looked out at camp) was his trap. He must have already gone hunting. It grew momentarily darker as a cloud passed in front of the sun and blocked its radiance, but for now the weather remained stubbornly clear, for only the third time in all of my experience on the island. The remnants of his breakfast were next to my bed where he had set them, and I suddenly remembered that I hadn’t had dinner the night before. There was even a roughly carved wooden fork there for me to eat with, complete with a flowery swirl etched into its surface. I ate with gusto, for  today was going to be a great day, I could feel it in my bones. It was a warm day too, for some of the snow on the roof of the lean-to was dripping through the cracks or falling off the rafters and onto the ground. The fire crackled occasionally, but it was nowhere near as vibrant or noticeable as last night. 

I threw off the woven, hemlock blanket and looked around. There were my boots, also next to my bed, though not so close that I could trip over them, and yet close enough to reach without straining my arms.  The morning of the sixth day had arrived, and I was ready for it. On the workbench lay two soft bars of soap and some water which was still warm when I dipped my finger in it, meaning that Hiccup had only left a few minutes ago. I washed my face thankfully and wiped it on my shirt, for which there was a hasty  fur patch laying on the bench also, as a small tear had opened in my sleeve.  A tiny needle with equally tiny thread also lay there, both of them moist, so that the cloth would seal when it dried after the patching business. 

Mending my shirt was easy, and it was almost as good as new in only a couple of minutes. I had to say, his skill set was impressive. What else had he done during the night? I stepped out of the tent, and I had to rub my eyes to let them adjust to the thousand beams of light shooting into them. Remember those ice crysta ls I was talking about earlier? Now each of them flashed with the brightness of the sun, creating a brilliant gallery, shaking in the dull wind and tinkling like an  so many wind chime s back home.  It was dazzling, bright and fantastic all at the same time, and maybe a little more. I tried to concentrate on what else had changed, but my eyes wanted to pay attention to the ice and nothing else. I forced them down and started to take stock of our camp. There was more wood under the covering, that was for sure, though the snow melt was giving the waterproof job that Hiccup had done on it a run for it s  money.  The soft plop of a falling water droplet sounded every so often, giving the scene a more down to Midgard feeling,  but that wasn’t even the best part.

A bow, just my size, lay on the outside workbench with ten perfectly crafted arrows laying right next to it, already strung tightly with sinew. I glossed over it’s shape and all of the details. It was almost five feet long and would be almost as tall as me should I stand it on the ground with the end down. The binding that held the cord to the bow looked well reinforced, and when I inspected the wood itself the heart and sap were in their right positions, with the inner core holding it all in place. The arrows glinted wickedly in the morning light, their sharp but not serrated edges able to cut a hair, not that we had any beards in need of shaving. Their shafts looked almost like they had been cut from port cedar, the best kind for arrows, as it kept its form well and was not affected by the weather, wet or dry. Several broad feathers were driven into the back of the things, just in front of the end of the stick. Where had Hiccup found this much quality wood and flint? And when would he have had the time to actually make this thing? 

If it was meant to be a surprise gift, he had certainly kept it secret well enough. Unfortunately he must not have had very much leather, for there was no belt or quiver, and the heads were not shielded.  Still, it was his way of saying thank you, and who was I to turn down a free present .  But first, a few practice shots to get the hang of it,  for there was no point in standing around. Yes, I do have impatience issues,  as Hiccup says, but I’ll be an old woman when I finally tell him that. 

I grabbed it with my left hand, which melded well with the design, allowing me to bring it to heel, perpendicular to the ground. I pulled back the string experimentally. While it was animal-based and would be liable to cause problems in the future. For now, it decided to behave, and as I felt the power of the weapon, tensing underneath my hand. It was better than any other bow I had ever owned, given I had never owned one, and felt almost as intuitive as my axe. Almost. Given our resources however, I wasn’t inclined to complain, at least not much. I played around with it for a little while longer until finally putting an arrow to the string, pulling back slowly, still testing the limits of this new machine. My hands shook almost imperceptibly as the fletching tickled my nose, waiting for an unseen signal, restless and waiting to release. Then the sound of a small water droplet hit my ears, and was drowned out by the whish-smack of the arrow flying off of the string and the bow snapping back and hitting the air. I watched, the world almost in slow motion as I watched the shockwave of the speeding projectile, the feathers guiding it onto it’s target, an oak tree of considerable size. The shot felt natural, almost as if it was an extension of my body and not just a conglomeration of various natural materials powered by my energy. Speaking of which, all that energy had to go somewhere, and it was dispersed as the broadhead embedded itself deep within the center of the tree, almost a foot deep, burying more than a third of the arrow with it and making the feathers thrash around wildly for several seconds with an insistent buzzing noise, like that of a yak-fly. Note to self, do not shoot arrows at trees, at least not with that much power, or you might break something. 

The world returned to real time soon after, and I realized that the tree was actually a good thirty yards away, pretty far for a first time bullseye on such a distant target. Now the only thing to do was get the arrow out, no mean task, for arrowheads were designed to stick, and if Hiccup was as experienced with that part of making bows as he was with the rest, well, this could take a while. It eventually ended sucking up almost half an hour of  good time, as well as costing me the arrow, for the shaft splintered when I tried to wrench the head free.  I grunted and tossed it into  the camp  woodpile next to our other firelighters , ashamed to waste flint of such good quality. Where had he gotten the stuff from, anyway? Especially without telling me about it  too .  Making sure that the camp was in order, I burned the bones from the morning meal, since we didn’t have a pot, fed wood to the fire, and put on my coat,  not taking any tinder or even a sparker with me, as we’d come to call them, as I already had my arrowheads and the dagger, and besides, I didn’t plan to stay out long.

With that I tempered my bouncing step to avoid  tiring myself out before the real game, and took to the forest  like a deer, with only my tracks to say that I had been there, and my scent had been partially washed out by the soap, though any wild animal that claimed to have a good nose would still smell me if the wind was right. At least it felt better to have all that grime off. 

Keeping th e bow in my left hand, and keeping it clear of brush, I walked with a quick gait, but not too quick lest my boots inhale snow again. Tripping wouldn’t be any run either, what with the snow being wet today, so I kept an eye out for any slippery rocks, and really anything else too. The moss that was still hanging on was shining vibrantly with clear water, the pure  liquid dripping onto the snow not with a ‘plop’, but with a ‘plosh’ instead, forming icicles that I could see my (distorted) reflection in as I looked on.  I saw nothing other than that until a little mouse not even the size of my fist shook itself off, sending droplets into the air, some even landing on my boot, which I ignored. The small being groomed it’s whiskers with pride, and I noted how it’s pink tail, which was hairless, seemed to not freeze. I had no more chance to study it, as even as quickly as it appeared, it disappeared, seeming to vanish into an unseen tunnel. I looked up from the distraction at a rustle, and saw from the corner of my eye that it was only some snow falling onto a cocklebur, which were surprisingly rare around here, even for our home. The only place I had ever seen them en’ masse was at the Meathead island when I went on that disastrous trip. Now that I think about it, it’s kind of odd that we left as late in the season as we did. I shrugged. I’d have to ask someone about that when we got back. An underling perhaps, a navigator maybe. I didn’t want to acquire a reputation for snooping around, but it did seem a little wrong to me. 

A little imprint in the snow attracted my attention, and I came closer, hunched so that I could inspect it in detail. It turned out to just be the place where a snowdrop had fallen and made a hole  that only looked like a rabbit track. I sighed. Oh well. It’s not like there’s a thousand more rabbits  running around in the woods anyway,  hopping really, but that’s just a technicality  for a later  date. Right now it seemed that all the game in the forest had disappeared into some magical place, because no matter how hard I hunted or followed the tracks, I never saw another animal bigger than a crow. And that inconsiderate chump dropped a pine cone on my head, courtesy of his excellent ‘manners’. 

Maybe Hiccup was having some better luck. One could only hope, but what with all the game acting so mysteriously spooked, I’d be surprised if he’d catch anything today. Naturally, I’d just gotten a bow, and _then_ all the rabbits vanished into their holes just like that. I hadn’t even seen any deer tracks all day, and if there had been some in the morning, they must have been smudged over, because I didn’t find anything of that sort in my neck of the woods. It took me almost two hours just to inspect one mile, I was doing it so carefully, and I still couldn’t find anything less than three hours old. Well, not nothing. A lithe bobcat had been watching me from the crotch of a tree, and I only noticed him when he yawned, opening his red mouth wide and exposing his cherry red tongue. He was probably taking a catnap and had just heard me stomping along like a drum, what with those big ears of his, and had decided to investigate. Gracefully he sat up and began cleaning off his fur with his paws, talons not extended but still showing underneath the tawny skin. I had half a mind to kill him and eliminate the competition for our resources and perhaps get the pelt, but to my knowledge he hadn’t done anything wrong, yet. I’d keep an eye on the meat back at camp for a while. I decided not to bother him, but at the same time keep an eye on the big cat. When I turned away I could see him grinning at me over his shoulder, then putting a paw over his eyes so that he could go back to sleep. I considered going back home, just to rest up, but denied myself the opportunity. I would not get lazy, not with our very lives at stake. Just because there was nice weather now didn’t mean that there would be nice weather later, I regaled, and I’d better take advantage of the situation while it lasted. 

I jumped down into a small depression caused by the winter melt. While gully’s and channels sometimes formed out here, a thick layer of moss and leaves would always trap the water and absorb it, releasing it slowly over the summer months. That kind of thing usually happened when there was a wildfire, and from the looks of the trees, events of that sort hadn’t happened here for many years.  A honeycomb of fallen saplings blocked my way, but I vaulted through them, exploiting the many gaps in the myriad combination to get through safely. Once I was on the other side I turned and looked back to see what had even caused that mess. The ground around the bases of the trees was covered in flecks of frozen dirt, much of which was mixing with the snow, which seemed more watery around there. In fact, the trunks all showed signs of water damage. The roots must have gotten loose during a bad rain, and something had caused them to fall over. Not in the market for looking at dead or dying plants anymore, I climbed out of the gully and started to walk within the real deal.

Threading my way gingerly through the trees, with not a man or his makings in sight, felt oddly wonderful to me,, and I marveled at all the things I hadn’t noticed before. The way a branch would bend and twist to get into the light, for example, and still remain closer to the trunk. The thousands of hibernating beetles hidden inside every log that I so much as cracked the bark open on. I had seen these things before, but I had not really seen. I had just been dimly aware of everything. It was like I could feel the beating heart of the earth, and subsequently every disturbance in it. I saw something that looked like it was out of place, a brown shape behind one of the bushes. I could have dismissed it as a nother mouse, but something else told me to take a closer  look.  I crouched and began to approach quietly, with my left hand gripping the bow and my right  fingering one of the arrows that I had belted to my coat, rather crudely compared to what Hiccup could have made, I thought with chagrin, and a lot slower  than a quiver should I need to make a fast draw  in case of an emergency. I intentionally turned at a slight angle, to make it look like I had lost the trail of whatever I was hunting, most likely a rabbit, which was the only thing small enough to fit behind that tiny bus h. Not looking at your prey directly made it look, to them at least, like they had not been seen, and if you did it right, you could even come within spear range of a partridge, albeit with more time and patience than I had at my disposal. Keeping the… ear, for that was what it was, in the peripherals of my vision, I shuffled along quietly, smiling to no one in particular but myself when it flicked a little. Still not looking at it directly, I came closer to the animal. If it happened to be a deer, it certainly wasn’t a buck, for at this distance I would have been able to see the antlers or perhaps their stubs if they had been shed already, which some of them had been,  as I had seen earlier. Once I judged I was close enough, I intentionally stepped on a rather large stick to see if I could flush it out. Frustratingly, it refused to break. I kicked up some snow anyway, and the animal twitched. I picked up the stick and tossed it against a tree, where it broke with a soddened thud, as it was impregnated with water.  The animal shot up and in an instant I saw that it was a deer, a magnificent doe, though not with fawn. Good. Even though it would have been necessary, I saddened when I had to kill unborn animals just for their mother. I found the bow automatically held in front of me, my hand poised to draw. You see, deer’s eyes are optimized to see motion, and with my ragtag clothes on, she must not have been able to make me out clearly as long as I didn’t stir. While I was frozen in place, I was contemplating the best way to get the arrows out of the makeshift belt, which was not serving it’s purpose well at all. My arms were still fresh and I felt that with an arrow in my hands, I would be able to easily take it down. If I pulled them head first out of the belt, I would run the risk of losing the feathers, but at this range it wouldn’t be such a problem, the doe standing stupidly less than a stone’s t oss away, making an easy broadside target for all but the most inexperienced archer s. I reached slowly for my sash, watching the deer as I did so. It tensed, but remained rooted to the spot without trying to flee. 

Suddenly I pulled the arrow out of the sash and h eld it in my right hand, which was drawing it quickly  up to my nose, which was harder then I’d imagined it would be .  Thankfully I hadn’t lost any of the fletchings. The doe leaped away, but I did not loose my weapon, knowing full well that I had only one good shot and I couldn’t waste it. My stance was near perfect, once again the bow feeling like just another part of my body  thanks to Hiccup’s craftsmanship .  I held my breath, waiting for the perfect opportunity. The unfortunate doe bounded high into the air, and I aimed slightly below it, and r eleased . With it’s now trademark whish-smack, the arrow  _ screamed _ towards it’s target, going so fast that a tiny contrail formed behind it and curled away from the path like wisps of smoke,  only without  a fire to cause them.  So fast that I struggled to see the arrow, though I had been holding it only a moment before. The broadhead entered the deer’s chest and smashed straight through, leaving only a small entry hole. But I knew what would happen when it came out the other side. Immediately the animal staggered from the force behind the impact, which nearly knocked it over, the feathers of the projectile having completely disappeared into it’s skin,  such was the blow. It tried to regain it’s balance, but the pain must have been too much and it’s strength too little, for it just gurgled and sank  to the forest floor.  I looked at my bow with  interest, then looked back at the doe,  seeing the damage compared to the relatively small arrow. Normally I was hit or miss with these  things , but this one was special. It needed a name worthy of  the marvelous design and massive power it had revealed  to me.  I rolled some around on my tongue.

Ghost? No. Too generic. Hunter? Better, but still not great. I could sit there and debate with myself for hours, but I didn’t want to spend the time doing it. Hopefully I’d come up with a moniker sometime in the future.

Not worried about bloating for the moment, as it was in the cold snow, I didn’t bother to cut it open, which also ran the risk of letting dirt in from the environment, especially since I was certainly at least a mile from home. There was the arrow to be worried about too, and I went too see if I could recover it. Sure enough, it had passed straight through the flesh of the deer almost like it hadn’t been there, although the exit wound was larger than the size of my fist. I did some estimation and, if my figures were right, it had gone roughly east after killing the deer. So what was there to do but follow it? Sure enough, I found the place where it had entered the snow, and then I kicked around a bit, hoping to find it snagged on a random root. It wasn’t there, and neither did the next ten feet yield anything. I know if I was off-track, for my shoes erased any trace of tunnels as soon as they uncovered them. Eventually I returned to the entry point, thoroughly puzzled. I didn’t want to lose it, for we only had ten, and I knew it was still intact. I cast my eyes over it’s presumed path, hoping that they might find something. And find something they did. Ten yards away, my arrow lay on it’s back, partially on top of the snow, shaft and head still intact, if a little bloody. It must’ ve skittered thirty feet underneath the snow after it had entered, and then bounced high enough to get out, which was why I was even able to see it. In deeper snow this could have been a nightmare to find and dig out. Fate was surely smiling upon me that day,  and I wasn’t about to inspect a gift horse from behind,  so I dug the arrow out of the snow, wiped it off well, and put it back into my sash, an arrangement that I now highly detested. 

Now the deer. If it had behooved me so to carry a pair of antlers (actually, only one set), then how would I move the whole  thing.  Turning it over so that the wide exit wound was on top and not dragging on the dirt wasn’t too difficult, and pulling it a few dozen yards wasn’t either. Only another mile and a half to go, I thought sarcastically.  I took the head on my shoulders and started to make another drag, this time for a slightly shorter distance. That went on for a while, until I encountered the first major obstacle of many. A flat wall of rock, about seven feet tall and twenty feet long blocked the way home with its sheer bulk. Pulling the deer all the way up was out of the question, as it probably weighed almost five hundred pounds, and besides, it was hard enough to drag it around, getting a good enough grip to heft it over a cliff. I didn’t really want to go around, so I started looking for a better way up. Multiple tree roots had burrowed or broken through the granite and were poking out  randomly like insect feelers. I  must’ve scanned the wall  three times, but there was no way directly up it for both me and my cargo to go up a ll at once.  There were n’t going to be any shortcuts. 

The thing about time is that you can’t stop it. Eventually if you try hard enough or hit your problem often enough (with an axe, not a hammer,  thank you ), you’ll always succeed.  Stoick’s Nest hunts not included.  I dragged the carcass along nearly twenty yards in the wrong direction before I found a dip in the wall, perhaps five feet in diameter and surrounded by  sharp stubble that could perhaps damage my catch.  First I scaled the incline and tried to pull the deer up by it’s forelegs, but the weight was too much to lift, even for me. Then I jumped down and tried to shove it up from behind. It seemed to be working, until I slipped on some grit and two hundred pounds of flesh came crashing down on me from above. The end result? A blood spattered and thoroughly frustrated Astrid who was no closer to home then when she had started.  At least I had a name for my bow.  _ Silencer.  _ It was a good name that served it’s purpose well, and sounded nice if I do say so myself. I’d stick with it.

The sun was waning steadily and the shadows were growing longer when I finally reached more familiar territory, with my stamina almost gone  and my body screaming for a rest.  I dropped the deer and leaned against a tree to get my breath, for I was badly winded.

“Need a little help with that? You’ve left a bloody trail that runs all over the woods.” said a voice. I knew instantly who it was. Hiccup.

“Maybe.”

H e gr abbed the hind legs and heaved. 

“Who goes first?” 

I shru gged, then picked up my end and trudged forward in front. Soon I passed one of our landmarks. We only had a quarter of a  mile to go, but it would be a hard bought quarter, and none too easy to navigate, the forest having it’s ways.

It was late in the afternoon when we arrived at Protection Rock. N o t a minute too soon either, for Hiccup wasn’t looking too well, his face looking very red and maybe even puffy, you might say. We threw the carcass down and took a good breather once we got into camp,  exhausted. It was late in the afternoon, but my brain felt like it had been years since I’d stepped out of  the little glade that morning. The deer would still have to be skinned, or frozen until we chose to eat it  of course, but for now we would be glad to only eat a part of the massive slab of venison, and hang up the rest for later  processing.

The previously warm temperatures had fallen some, and a few ominous clouds covered half of the western sky, threatening to drop more snow on our heads. The sun reflected off their tops, diffusing into the air, creating a multicolored halo that spanned the sky like a thread of yarn, so thin and yet so wide and vivid. Underneath the floating masses I worked fervently to keep our only fresh venison from spoiling in the unusual heat of the winter thaw that had come. By now patches of brown grass had begun to poke through the melting layers, and camp, though not filled with water by all means, had started to take on a musty smell. Thankfully all of the flies had been killed by the cold snap, otherwise we would have been miserable from their constant biting. Come to think of it, they would’ve spoiled the meat if we had left it out too long, so we were thankful for that as well. Today would be known as first venison day, and Hiccup had already extended the notch on the day stick to twice it’s usual size to mark our celebration. I was trying to cut the haunch of the animal, with a little difficulty but more determination, and Hiccup had thrown some more oak onto the fire prematurely, so that it would cook properly.

And yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. Do you know that feeling, when your neck tingles, when you can tell that something isn’t quite right, but it’s impossible to pinpoint exactly what it is that’s bothering you? I couldn’t see what was wrong, but I trusted my danger sense enough to know that we could be in peril from some wild animal. Hiccup looked like he was feeling the same presence, for he was stealing concerned looks at the forest around us, trying to penetrate the depths of the trees, all to no avail I knew, for the brush was simply too thick, and there were too many places to hide in should someone wish us evil. I kept my bow within reach, just in case, and the hand that was cutting the doe was always ready to come out at a moment’s notice. Still, I doubted it would really come to anything. Some coyote scouting around, hoping to rush in and steal some of the meat from us most likely. We knew that they hung around on the island, so it wouldn’t be too far of a stretch. Coyotes didn’t attack vikings all that often though, and fire usually kept them away. Still, we would have to take precautions if we didn’t want to have a large chunk of meat ‘mysteriously’ disappear during the late night and early morning, when the fire would have burnt down and we would be asleep and unable to prevent the theft. But I digress here.

By the time I had cut out a significant portion of venison,  the cooking rocks (we didn’t have a pan) were red hot, and I laid some of the delicious smelling meat on a slab to cook, all the while making small talk with Hiccup,  of which there was plenty  to go round. 

The sun was almost below the horizon by the time we began to eat.  T hough not as brilliant a sunset as the night before, the marching line of clouds made for an impr essive dinner that rounded off a good day. I looked forward to relaxing and discussing things with Hiccup before heading off to bed for a refreshing sleep.  But  still my spine tingled dangerously, and I found myself uneasy and not in the mood for much of anything. 

A loud, hollow sound began to rise from the forest, deepening in tone, and prickling my skin so that the hairs on my scalp stood on end. It was unmistakably the call of a wolf, and it was very close. Another howl joined it, and soon the forest was ringing with their calls, calls that seemed to draw nearer and nearer with every second. Silently praying that they would pass us by, for we were in no condition to fight, we wasted no time in drawing our weapons, though they were small and unsuited to what faced us. I waited, standing my ground, with an arrow within easy  reach and  _ Silencer _ poised to  fire .  It was better to be safe then sorry, as my aunt always said, although she was on my mother’s side, not Finn’s. 

Then, like a candle silently lit, a pair of golden eyes appeared in the darkness ahead of us, then another pair, and another one, until five wolves stood in front of us, and more were baying in the distance.  Hiccup summed up all of my thoughts.

“I have a bad feeling about this.”

This was no time to be funny, but I smiled anyway. Hopefully they hadn’t circled around us to attack from  both directions. My hopes were dashed when I heard the tch tch tch of claws against stone, which meant that the wolves were probably attempting to  find a foothold against Protection Rock. 

“Stick with me. Don’t show them fear.” I told him, and he did, valiantly holding my knife in one hand while I covered the forest, ready to draw. I felt his fingers grasp mine and squeeze, and I squeezed back.

The leader of the pack stepped forward into the small circle of firelight, faintly back lighted by the light of dusk shining onto his tail like a hazy coat of blue paint. He was about chest hight for me, and his frame was well shaped and filled with muscles that rippled when he walked or so much as craned his neck. His lungs were well built, leading up to a huge jugular that powered jaws that looked like they could snap my arm in half and his fur shone with what can only be called gloss. He was colored mostly black, with a head like that on most wolves, just more powerful and perfectly shaped. The eyes were piercing and saw everything. They were seeing me now, as he looked straight at me, and unconsciously we both began to participate in the ancient game of chicken.

I did not avert my eyes from his, staring him down like a hawk, waiting to see if he would knuckle under and cow. But he owned the numbers advantage and he knew it. So he stepped past me, making a beeline for the doe which I had killed and was now chilling in the evening air along with a rabbit and some other assorted meat which was going to be smoked. I stepped in front of him, but he blithely  passed me and attempted to go on. I  stepped in front of him again, but he ignored me. This guy had some moxie to just barge into our home and steal our food, and if he knew what was good for him he’d leave. Their alpha growled and shoved me aside, once again heading for our food. Now he was just overstepping his boundaries.

I slugged him what would normally be a knockout blow in the nose, and the fight was on. He wrinkled his nose and sniffed, as if surprised. Then he threw his head up and howled fit to shatter a window. The other members of the pack answered him and sprang forward  with their teeth bared,  glinting wickedly against the dull setting of our camp. It happened so fast that it was overwhelming, but I had been in dragon raids before, and I knew how to keep my cool. Hiccup, not so much. With a shock I realized that keeping up with the alpha had isolated him and he was now an easy kill for anything that so much as looked at him the wrong way. Looking over, I saw that the wolves seemed to flow around him without leaving so much as a scratch. The alpha had disappeared and I couldn’t see him in my limited frame of vision. At the same time half of the pack was scrambling down off of the rocks in the cove, having climbed over them at their leader’s call to arms.  The scene was one of chaos as at least ten wolves were bounding through our camp, knocking over everything and turning what had been an organized home into a mess.  Their barking and whining was terrible to hear, and was second only in noise to a dragon raid. In the heat of the action the unfamiliar weapon was a detriment, and as I drew an arrow to the string and let go, I knew it would miss. 

The whish-smack of  _ Silencer  _ got the wolves attention, as if they’d never seen a bow before. The wolf I’d been aiming at, a medium sized black chestnut which had been running broadside to me, stopped, and the arrow which had been wobbling out of control before was now suddenly on target. It slammed into it’s target near one of the leg arteries, hitting the bone and causing dark red blood to spurt out almost a foot into the snow almost like yak cream being poured into a cup. It howled in pain and leaped away, losing it’s balance and falling, though it was still alive, I doubted it would live without becoming permanently crippled.  The satisfaction of seeing it fall wasn’t as relevant as the need to find another target however, so I drew another arrow to the string, this time with better form, and took aim, this time at a large grey that was helping another pull  off a chunk of meat. 

Another whish-smack shattered the cacophony, but I just wasn’t familiar enough with  _ Silencer  _ to score good hits with it. The arrow missed it’s back by a hairs breadth  and went on to hit Protection Rock, shattering the flint head and leaving the shaft to fall harmlessly to the ground with a thud . I winced. Every miss counted against us in a game where we were outnumbered eleven to one (I’m not sure Hiccup counts). Our only hope was to make them realize that our food stores were not worth running the gauntlet.

By  now the pack was beginning to catch on to the strange projectiles that were hitting them, and  three of their biggest were already loping towards me, among them their leader. I can only assume that they smelled human scent on my arrows, otherwise I might have been able to kill them all had I only been given enough ammunition. Without my dagger to defend myself with, I had to make this shot count. The alpha stood head and shoulders above the others, but he was moving faster than the others as well, so that actually hitting him would be a challenge.  The wolf at his right split from the formation, as did the one on his left in a classic encirclement tactic  that would pin me down at a range where my bow would be useless. 

What about Hiccup? I stole a quick look at him and saw that he was alright, if a little afraid. He’d held his ground with his back against the wall, afraid to go into the maelstrom that was the center of camp  with only a dagger in his untrained hands. I grimaced. They had probably gotten into the main food stores already too. But now the alpha was close enough for me to see the whites, or in this case the greens, of his eyes,  giving me a generous profile with his chest entirely exposed. I couldn’t have gotten a better shot if I’d tried. 

I pulled back the string as far as it would go, almost past my head, feeling the raw power of it’s held back energy. Whish-smack! The arrow sped towards his neck, and once again time seemed to slow down. The two wolves on either side of him leaped at me with a roar, but it was too late to save the alpha, as I watched white wisps form behind the screaming black mass. It was like a man crushing a worm, for all his muscles and brawn couldn’t save him from the well-placed force that was now kicking him back like a boulder from a catapult. The arrow buried itself up to the feather in his neck and crushed his windpipe, and that was the end for him. But recognizing that he was surely doomed, and that death would come to him that night, he howled one last time, until his mouth was choked in blood  so much so that he couldn’t breath, couldn’t think from the pain, all he could do was howl like a banshee until he died like just another animal in it’s cage.

Instantly all of the other wolves dropped everything and charged at us, wont to avenge the fall of their comrade. Alas, us included Hiccup, and he was now isolated and backed against a rock wall with no conceivable escape. For now I had my own problems. One of the grays that had accompanied the alpha had left to nuzzle his dead body, presumably his mate. The other was still running towards me at top speed with deadly intent visible in his eyes. I fumbled with my arrow, but he was just too close. I dropped my bow, but not my arrows, which I held above my head. The moment he came too close, I’d stab him. Not the best weapon, but it would be better than nothing when push came to shove. I watched as the wolf gathered himself for the spring, his well oiled skin showing the muscles coiling themselves like the cat chasing a mouse under the carpet. 

When he leaped, I was ready for it. He made an ill-coordinated jump, trying to pin me down, but he should’ve known that I was quicker than that. I scrambled to the side, and sunk a barb into his massive shoulder, which was now glossed with blood from the injury. But the arrow haft was not strong enough to support such twisting forces, and it snapped in two, giving me a long cut on my palm from one of the flying splinters that itched like the devil. I rolled away and stood up on all two legs, my bow near at hand where it lay from when I had thrown it, and another arrow already in my hands, there being no time for a proper shot. But even as I prepared to fight with my teeth if I had to, more wolves were on my case, and in ten seconds I would be totally overwhelmed. 

“Run!” shouted Hiccup. “You can’t hold them off forever.”

I risked a tiny glance over my shoulder. Hiccup had somehow climbed over the rock wall and the wolves had not been able to follow him. Right now he was on the outside of the cove with my dagger hanging uselessly at his side.  I could just barely see his shape outlined against the night sky, beckoning to me. I looked back at the wolves. Half the pack was closing in on me now, the other half either having taken the meat or been killed. Hiccup was right, this was a fight we could not win.  I grabbed my bow off the ground and bolted towards  the exit , but not before the gray I had hit scored a neat scratch on my right arm that didn’t help things. I punched him for his efforts.

My hand met an outstretched arm that pulled me from danger, at least for the moment.  We didn’t waste any time looking back and booked it for the forest, with the wolves nipping at our heels. They weren’t playing around either, their great strides covering five yards with every bound, and soon they had almost caught up to us. 

“Why do they want to kill us so much? You’d think they would’ve stopped chasing us by now.” said Hiccup between breaths.

“Revenge, I think.”

“For what?”

“I killed the big black one. Must’ve been their leader.” I said as a hungry pair of teeth nearly found a home in my heel.

“No kidding.” Hiccup mumbled something else under his breath, but I didn’t quite catch it.

Now was not the time for that however, as any extra effort on our part would just slow us down. Already my lungs were… tightening so that every breath was harder than the last. My mouth became sour, and a burning spit was pooling in my teeth and coating my throat in a choking vapor,  never mind my tongue, which had become totally numb, and my jaw which had been hanging slack for so long in a bid to inhale more air, was now sore from all the shaking which the running had caused. I coughed and nearly turned my ankle on  a log while I was distracted. A moment later Hiccup did the same. Our stamina was running out, and the wolves were almost done with us. They must have been playing with our lives, thinking that on a small, uninhabited island like this there was no refuge for us.  Alas, that was closer to the truth then I had originally thought. They were so close behind us that we did not dare stop  and fight, nor even attempt to climb the trees which would provide protection. 

Even the minuscule light of the falling sun had been completely blotted out, and we were running blind through a hazard filled forest. Night in the archipelago falls quickly, and sometimes it can be so dark that the pitch is almost tangible in the air. Suddenly, I had an idea.

“Turn around! I have a plan.” Either he didn’t hear me or my command was so eccentric that he ignored it. 

Perhaps there was a better way to do this. I reached out to Hiccup, and while I couldn’t see him, I still had a rough idea of where he was, from feeling more than anything else. I found his shoulder and traced it down to his hand.

“Turn around!” I said.

“That’s crazy!”

“It’s better than nothing.” Before he could resist, I yanked his arm so that he spun backwards, almost losing his balance, but my firm grip steadied him. Only having my right arm free was proving to be quite the challenge, but I gently lowered him to the forest floor, though I did it as quickly as possible. Then I lay down flat, keeping a hand on Hiccup’s mouth so that he wouldn’t cry out. My little scheme worked to perfection, as the wolves were mainly relying on their noses and their ears to follow us, the pitch black of the arctic night having concealed us from them. They swept our position like a summer thunderstorm. Just to keep them off our track for a little longer and buy us more time to escape, I threw a rock in a random direction to imitate the sounds of an escape. The pack bought the deception, as I could hear their barks shifting to what I judged was the south. It would only be a matter of time before they noticed we were gone and picked up the scent again, so moving was a matter of the highest priority.

I waited several seconds to make sure that no stragglers would come along and find our hiding spot, then sat up and looked around, Hiccup doing the same.  It was hard to make out anything in spite of our best efforts , the moon, which was in it’s last stages of waning, was not able to penetrate the clouds, and the world was dark. The  body of the forest I could see, dimly backdropped against the inky night sky,  but not much else. 

“We need to climb.” I said. “Wolves can’t climb trees.”

Alas, the woods here were of the worst sort, as we found to our detriment. Whatever bark we could find was silky smooth and the branches were too high to grasp. Not wanting to waste time, for it was of the essence, we began to move in an attempt to find good shelter. Sure enough, the barks which had faded away into the distance now came closer and louder again, and we quickened our steps in fear, stopping only to navigate an obstacle or test the trees once more. With our scent trail so hot, there would only be a few more minutes before once more they were nipping at our heels  once more. Still the forest refused to cooperate, and as an explosion of noise in the otherwise quiet winter night rang through the hills, I broke into a run. My breath caught the littlest glint of light shining down from the sky, and the ground took on a more surreal texture. Hiccup was right behind me, running as fast as he possibly could to avoid losing the trail that I had taken and the wolves were now tracing. I doubted that I could pull my earlier trick again. 

Suddenly the dark presence of the woods cleared, and I could see the clouds racing across the sky, their features ambiguous and yet defined. I could feel grass replacing the woody leaves and moss of the forest floor  that had become so familiar to me.  We had broken into a small glade, roughly circular, though my night vision was unreliable at best that I was sure of.  Up ahead was a looming shape that looked almost like a turtle’s shell, sticking up out of the ground like a pile of rocks. Which it was, as I discovered to my detriment when I slipped and  scraped myself on them. Hiccup missed my fall, but when he could not hear me running, he began to call out.

“Astrid! Where are you?”

I grunted and lifted my arm, which seemed to be in some hole in the pile.

“Over here! In the stones.”

“Keep talking. Hurt?” 

He was now on the other side of the rocks, from what I could tell, and coming closer. I tested my limbs. Other than that deep scratch which I had received earlier I was mostly fine,  just banged up and hung out to dry, that was all.

“No. I think I’ve found a cave.”

“Good. I’ll be there in a sec.” I could hear a faint scratching over the ever growing sounds of the wolf pack, which was now only a minute away, maybe two. There was a thud as a body landed right next to me, and he caught my arm. I felt rather than saw him trace the lines of the opening, and he gave a low whistle as he reached forwards and met nothing but air. It was an entrance well hidden, and had I not fallen at just the right time we never would have seen the small black shadow there in a world of black shadows.

“Do you think there’s anything in here?” he asked.

“If there is, it’s got to be better than being eaten alive by wolves. I’ll take my chances.” How wrong that was. 

I scooted in and found to my delight that I was able to stand all the way up. Hiccup tripped over a large rock coming in, but it was just the right kind of rock, as it looked to be about the size that would fit in the entrance,  if you paired it with a few others . The only problem was that the entrance was three feet wide and almost double that in width. Still, it was our best hope, and we began searching for the crack between it and the floor so that we could lift up the slab, which reminded me of a giant doormat.  It wasn’t all that wide, so soon we had lifted it halfway up to the way in. I pushed hard with my back to the stone, but it took much strength to move it, strength that I didn’t have after such a long chase. As it was, it took both of us to close the ‘door’, and there was still a small passage that a wolf could possibly slip through. 

Speak of the devil, the cavalry had arrived. The leaders of the pack charged in to the clearing, and began sniffing the ground around our shelter, doubtless following Hiccup’s scent trail, which would buy us some time.  Without hesitation, the boy in question started to gather some of the average looking rocks that were laying about in the corners, and thrust them endwise into the hol e  so that they would stick. I joined in, and soon we had to kick with our boots to make the new stones fit in. Finally, with a mighty thrust, I pushed the last slab into the barrier, just as a giant paw scratched at it. Hopefully  they would hold.  But one could not take any chances. I stepped back with my bow drawn and my four sweaty arrows on my belt,  guarding against the chance of a break in.

My foot hit something, but it wasn’t a rock. It seemed almost organic to the touch, and yet hard. It was late at night, and so the part of my mind that would normally be screaming danger at me was cloudy and not functioning. I half-turned, all while keeping an eye on the door.

“Hiccup, what’s this?” I spurned the object with my toe.

“What’s what?”

“This.”

“I can’t see it. Where?”

“Here.”

And I kicked it with my boot, hard, in an effort to show him the spot. Suddenly there was a low rumbling noise and my boot rose up as the ground moved. I was thrown down by the mass as it rose, and the warm wind of heavy breathing flowed across my hair, ruffling it. A small curtain of flames spat out and onto the ground, where they stuck and lit up the room with a phosphorus glow.  A blue dragon, it’s great bulk taking up half of the room was revealed before my eyes.

“And to think we’ve just sealed our own coffins.” groaned Hiccup.


	14. Until Morning

**AN: **

Happy New Years.

* * *

The dragon snorted, blowing warm air gently over Astrid’s hair, slicking it back, the flaxen surface wetted by all of the sweat that permeates it. Thrown into contrast by a wavering light, the beast’s snout seemed particularly deadly, protruding from the shadows as it did, like a steel pike, glinting wickedly, shining even in the limited light, drawing unwelcome connections. Still, the impression is broken, as the dragon shakes it’s head wildly, undoubtedly disoriented by the sudden awakening.

For a moment, no one moved a muscle. Even the hardest of hearing could have heard a pin drop, or so much as the buzzing of a fly. As it is, the breathing of the three cave occupants is deafening, each one of the three cave occupants hearing their own heart beat like a hammer and tongs pounding over the barking of hungry wolves that are spoiling for their opportunity. Now the nadder blinks sleepily, still not fully comprehending the cave’s new, and unwelcome, visitors, yawning lightly and showing the bright pink tongue, reddened by the orange light of the fire that is now illuminating it’s bright blue scales. Still the humans do not move, their faces betraying their shock and astonishment like an open book, though Astrid distantly reaches for an arrow and starts to string it with numb fingers that she can only dimly feel, even as the blood pumps through them with violence. In her mind, they are doomed to fight, and she might as well strike the first blow, if only to have a chance at winning this battle, their only exit guarded by another danger than that they are now encountering.

If the dragon recognizes any threat from the weapon, it does not act, instead choosing to sit tight and wait any action on Astrid’s part.

Outside, a branch falls and breaks, a resounding crack from it’s impact flowing through the cave like the horn starting a race. Like the horn that heralds the beginning of a race, the fight was on. The twang of the bowstring was masked by the scream of an arrow, as Astrid released all of that unborn energy which she had compiled. The tip hits right on the dragon’s nose, shattering and sloughing off like water, making Ocean whip her head back from the sudden impact, one that she did not see coming to her. A brush of her large wings blows air onto the failing fire, and it scatters across the floor, dimming from the dispersion, but somehow becoming more brilliant. Astrid sees her chance.

“Now! While it’s confused!”

She reaches for her dagger, but remembers that it is in Hiccup’s possession. It’s been clutched there for the entire time, slippery with the perspiration expired during the chase, yet still perfectly deadly in the right hands. The dragon is properly grumpy now, looking ready to spit fire at them for their intrusion, but still Hiccup grasps vainly at the dagger, wasting precious seconds that could have been of much use, seemingly not wanting to press the attack against his enemy.

Then several things happen all at once. Ocean roars, her warm breath which was once a gentle breeze nearly moving the humans back a pace and filling Astrid’s hair with saliva, dragon breath filling their nostrils with the foul smell of night dragon breath, a terrible combination under any circumstances. Hiccup’s hands, which were already well greased, seem to drip with perspiration, reflecting an oily light off each of his fingernails. Under all the pressure, it’s understandable what he does next. He drops his weapon. The clatter fully rouses the dragon, erasing all of the faintest haze of it’s confusion, leaving only a growing anger, and perhaps a little befuddlement on the side to boot.

Astrid makes a blind dive for her knife just as Ocean launches a liberal spread of spines which whistle over her back, missing her by inches and crack against the hard wall. In the excitement it’s hard to grip the weapon, and she casts off her bow to make it easier, grasping for any trace of a handle, just as her foe begins to form a plan. The element of surprise is now almost totally gone for both parties, while Hiccup is mostly strung against the sidelines, and her foe is busy making a plan.

Finally her hand meets the knife, and she rolls onto her feet, making a feint lunge, then dancing away over the stones, only stumbling slightly. Still, her energy was drained from the prolonged period of running that she had had to endure, and now that fatigue was starting to show from the seams of her defense, a defense that could only hold up for so much longer.

Once more Ocean whips her tail back and forth, and an array of lethal darts zips past Astrid, poorly aimed. But who is to say that they entirely missed, for one, missing the girl, smote the rock wall next to Hiccup, and even as he jumped out of the way, a shard was riven into his shoulder with great force, driving it deeper into his flesh than was healthy for him.

It burned strangely, hurting more than a wound of that size should, even in the worst environments. Hiccup grabbed the end of the evil fragment and pulled. The barbs that would usually keep it grounded to him had been sawed off on impact, and it came out easily, and not a moment too soon, for he clutched the side of his arm in pain, sinking to the ground while making faces while a crystal fire flowed through his veins. Hoping that the poison wouldn’t spread any further, he sat on his knees, down but not out from such a small injury. With his heart beating at the rate that it was, it was a wonder he didn’t already have a nosebleed or some other symptom, instead it seemed that his head had been cloven in two by an axe, and looking at the light was painful in turn. With his eyes shielded, Hiccup curled into a small ball on the floor and hoped for the best.

As it was, blood was already welling up from his collarbone like a weeping mosquito bite, slowly soaking his tunic with that telltale iron must that seems to preclude all loss. Two more hits like that and he would be done for, Hiccup thought, and he was probably right, forced to stay out of a fight for his life, he could only watch and listen to the sounds of battle, to Astrid’s frustration, to say the least,

Speaking of Astrid, how was she getting along? The flames that had glowed so sinisterly earlier were now extinguished, and for only a few seconds, both she and her opponent were blind, giving her a fleeting advantage that just asked to be taken and used.

Ducking down for a moment to avoid any last second shots in the failed light, she jumped towards the last known position of her opponent, bringing out the dagger in one fluid motion timed perfectly with her leap in a rare display of competence such that had never been seen before on the island. But even then fatigue still showed, manifesting in the fringe of her battle cry. Ever as she estimated where the dragon was and brought her knife out for an uppercut to strike at the vulnerable underbelly of it’s bulk, so did Ocean fire another, wider, set of needles towards the sound of her rapidly encroaching footwork.

hey missed, and by a wide margin as well, but another broke like a piece of glass upon the place where Hiccup would have been, should he have remained standing. Several more shards fell down around him, yet none broke the skin and delivered their venomous payload. It made the hair on the back of his neck tingle nonetheless, and I can’t blame him for that either in that light (which really meant none at all) for his obvious fear.

A moment later, Astrid dived under Ocean’s head, aimed for the middle mass, and struck what she thought would be a brutal blow. The point of the blade dug itself into the dragon’s scales, and would have made a flesh wound, if only the wolf rake on her back had not entered the fray. There was just not enough force in the end for the knife to penetrate, and the edge bounced off with fiery sparks that fell to the ground haphazardly and faded away as quickly as they had come. Grimly Astrid saw that with every strike, her dagger grew duller, and her muscles more fatigued. The longer the fight continued, the worse her chances of winning, despite the fact that most girls her age would have already given up and prayed to Thor for a miracle, so impossible seemed the challenge that now faced her.

Still confused a little, Ocean misses her chance to snap at Astrid’s heels as she scoots away at top speed and out of her reach. The smell of blood tickles her nose, only it’s not Astrid’s. But finally her opponent’s tiredness is starting to slip through the cracks even as Ocean becomes more alert and in tune with the situation. Astrid nearly trips over a pebble somewhere bordering the wall, and sends it skittering across the floor. If it’s a trick to distract the wary dragon, it doesn’t work, as she watches the place where the flying rock had come from, clearing her head, and beginning to finally use her body’s natural advantages.

The noise of raspy breathing is all the dragon can hear, and she knows that most of it is her own exhalations. The girl has quieted herself, and the only other person in the room is Hiccup, who is laboring long and hard to draw in good air, the poison having done a bad number on him. With her night vision shattered, Ocean decides to light things up once again. Knowing that there was only a limited supply of air, she was sparing with her fire, and only a small stream of it spatters acrosst the stones. Almost like a flow of burning water it crests, and it curdles like milk as it flows around, revealing everything in brilliant orange detail.

In one of the corners is what looks like another human, she can’t exactly tell. He’s curled up and his jacket is soaked with the blood that was tickling her nostrils. His face is shielded from the light by one hand, while the other is clutched on his shoulder in a vain attempt to keep the blood from spilling out hand over fist. Out of her peripheral vision something moves, and Ocean turns to meet it, striking out with a broad wing in the general direction of Astrid, who ducks under the twisting limb and keeps coming. It’s a big risk, closing the range so recklessly, and only blind luck keeps her from being pinned down by the dragons’ sweeping body as Ocean aligns herself with the whirlwind attack.

There was another quick slash, a glint of light, and sparks fell onto the dusty floor, swallowed up by the grey matter as blue scales joust with flashing steel, making the dagger rebound into Astrid’s hands and jamming her wrists as she danced away, on her toes, ready to exploit any vulnerability in Ocean’s defense.

Irritated by the sting of knife against scale, Ocean lashed out with a well placed kick. Astrid sidelined, spinning on the balls of her feet so that it would pass to her right, but the effort still knocked her off balance and she stumbled awkwardly as the dragon pulled it’s feet back in an effort to balance itself in turn, lining up for a shot at the same time that Astrid found her feet. Not completely, as the flying quills nearly found their mark in her neck as she rolled away, wishing for a shield all the while. Perhaps the outcome could have been different if Ocean had thrown a few more spines a little to the left, but even a dragon’s spines are not unlimited and she may not have wanted to spend them all at once. Even in her youth, Ocean was ever the moderate.

It was at this point that Hiccup muttered some kind of sarcastic remark, though what it was cannot be said, as nobody really paid attention to it.

Astrid scrambled to her feet, the look on her face showing how much she realized that that last scrape had been just too close. Another speeding needle slipped through her hair, going so fast that it barely ruffled the surface, almost as if to prove her point. It thudded against the rocks behind her with enough force to send rolling dust down her coat. But how not to get hit? Astrid ransacked her mind while she dodged in the fading light, the second cycle of illumination in the dark night. Then, she saw her chance.

Ocean overextended, her quoit throwing tail made busy by the effort of keeping her stable. It was like a new understanding of the fight for Astrid, and as her third and final wind kicked in, she raced towards the gap, ignoring the sharp teeth that could have ripped her to pieces on the way in, right under the dragons’ head as it vainly tried to bat at her with it’s uninjured wing from the left. Astrid easily stepped right, but that brought her almost out of Ocean’s blind spot, and she nearly got blasted, a small leakage of whitish-orange fire fluid drizzling out the side of the dragons’ cavernous mouth, sucking some of the good oxygen from the air and causing Astrid to cough.

Now that she thought about it, how long had it been since she’d had a good breath? Dancing beneath an angry dragon’s head, however, didn’t leave much time for such questions, as she made a drive into the joint of the dragons’ neck, only for it to be foiled. Hiccup, too, felt the strange constriction of his lungs even as half his body throbbed excruciatingly with the pain that he had no choice in bearing.

Ocean was thinking the same thing, only it was more urgent for her. Other than the natural shot limit, the amount of air in the cave could be a deciding factor. After all, who wanted to choke themselves on their own fire? Alas, that could already be happening, as her inhalations were beginning to feel stuffier and less refreshing with every passing minute. Her nostrils flared in a sudden intake because of a sudden prick of pain on her neck, and she dipped her head to compensate, a knife nearly having been thrust into an artery by the ever persistent enemy. In another minute or so the light of the fire would die out again, and she would have to light it again once more.

But why? In a flash, the earlier elements of her plan came to fruition, and she began to play for the long game. The loss of oxygen was still frustrating, but not as much of a handicap as she’d originally thought. Down below, Astrid began to waver, her nimbleness swallowed by the fatigue of the night’s exertions. Without a plan and a way to end this fight quickly, she’d lose to the greater power of the dragon, even without the great schism that was opening between her mind and body. Everything seemed so much more sluggish than before, every movement lagged behind what she had expected to happen, and every stroke was lighter than the next. But the dragons’ onslaught seemed to have no end, and already it was a challenge to stay in the blind zone while avoiding blind blows that would easily crush her. Some of the caustic smoke was causing her left eye to tear up uncomfortably, just adding another grievance to a long list of woes.

The ambient glow of the fire died once more, the flames disintegrating to a white powder that quickly mixed with the gray dust on the floor, mixed in by scuffling feet. Again Ocean spat out some of the glowing goo, but much less of it this time than the last, and instead of coating the walls in a brilliant orange like it had before, the light had turned completely dull and lifeless, reducing Astrid’s vision to nothing but shadows while Ocean’s night sight still saw everything in exquisite detail. And that was exactly what Ocean needed.

Jumping back, the dragon pressed up against the cave wall, putting her enemy to her fore while covering her sides with a thousand pounds of solid rock, each. Although the casual observer would have thought that Astrid had driven her back, the reluctance with which she pressed the attack suggested otherwise. Indeed, the girl was just about to drop, only kept from unconsciousness by the insane amounts of adrenaline rushing through her veins. Fighting for one’s very life until day becomes night and night becomes day again certainly has that effect on people.

With all of her strength nearly gone, the situation was certainly looking dismal. Now Astrid was looking at the now very large chance that she might lose. With every failed strike and and every, ever slowing dodge from a strike that would have sheared her to the core, that was looking almost certain now. If she wanted to survive this night, she’d have to pull off a miracle. And that was exactly what she intended to do.

“Traditional viking stubbornness.” mumbled Hiccup in the background. It seemed that he would be sarcastic till the bitter end.

Tucking herself down, she rolled towards Ocean from the very fore. The move was unexpected… and that was what she was counting on. A flurry of quills zipped over her head, but at this point she was so used to trading insults with death that she didn’t even notice, other than to note that it made a nice breeze in an otherwise breathless place. True was her aim, and when she felt dragon scales under her tender shoulder, she leaped up and started to climb.

For a moment Ocean was surprised enough that part of her brain could not be bothered to make her move any more, and she held her breath as Astrid scrambled up her leg, using her wings as grips to get where she wanted. A few scales scraped her already raw hands and punctured her legs, but feeling no burning effect (she’d been hit by nadder darts before), she kept going. By the time Ocean had the presence of mind to try and shake off her opponent, it was too late. Astrid was on her neck, and intended to stay there. It was a rodeo up there, but Astrid clung onto the gravelly head with all she had, and managed to stay on without getting crushed.

Now she raised her dagger high above her body, ready to bring it crashing down into the back of Ocean’s skull, her royal blood showing as even as she was covered in sweat, dirt and grease, she seemed more regal and yet more terrible than ever.

The skin on the back of a Nadder’s head wouldn’t be thick enough to deflect the blade or even stop it. In a last minute attempt to stop the small human, Ocean tried to use her tail to wipe off Astrid, like a fly caught in the windshield wiper. But alas, backing up against the wall had it’s consequences, and she just couldn’t get her spines around fast enough to even hit the tiny thing hanging onto her back.

But the hands which had once felt so lithe now felt as heavy as stones, and Astrid knew that even as tired as she was, something was wrong. Her muscles refused to function, and just as the dagger was about to plunge into Ocean’s neck, so did it fall from her fingers, almost in slow motion, like she was watching it from far away.

The thing which had enabled their livelihood, had kept them warm, helped make shelter, and had helped defend her in time of need, fell to the floor with a clang and it’s jingling crash echoed throughout the cave. The soporific had done it’s work, flowing in through the side spines and flowing off of the scales on the dragons’ legs and into an unsuspecting Astrid, leaving Ocean to live another day.

Astrid had only a second to comprehend all this, until she started getting pounded against the granite roof. Again and again she was pushed back and compressed until all the air was thrown violently from her lungs, and there would be only a moments respite until that would happen once more. Like the beating of a hammer on a rivet, Astrid was put in her place until she was mercifully knocked unconscious and fell to the floor with a heavy thud and a clinking of her heavy chain mail skirt. And with that, the fight was over.

Ocean stamped on the dagger until it was a twisted hunk of metal underneath her heavy foot. A master smith would struggle to form an edge on the wreck the piece had become, much less a weapon, folded in upon itself and coated in thick layers of dust as it was. Turning her head, Ocean saw a couple of the things that had smashed into her at the beginning of the fight. Bows and arrows aren’t usually used against dragons because they just don’t have enough weight to them, so she didn’t know about _Silencer. _ The arrowheads seemed dangerous though, so she crushed them with her heel until they were turned to gravelly, albeit sharp, reflective dust, though at this point there wasn’t much light to scatter around anymore.

The wolves which had initially interrupted her sleep were still milling around outside, for she could smell them while they were still outside through all of the cracks in her cave. They seemed to be somewhat disinterested, and one by one she felt their presences diminish until once more they were only a shadow within the woods, a shadow that was quickly joining the many other shadows. They howled, a many chorded melody that reverberated around the entire island, then trotted off in search of other, easier prey.

Now what of the humans?

The brown haired one was still conscious, but looked a little hazy, his hand (it looked like a boy…) clutching his shoulder and coated in blood from the anti-clotting poison administered by the rogue spine. His tense form had relaxed, letting him sprawl out over the ground haphazardly, like a fish out of water. A few scratches, some extraneous and some deep, lined his legs, probably from the wolves. The blood had pooled a little on top of his jacket, which had been partially soaked in a couple of places, but it had mostly clotted, the poison cycling out of his system fairly rapidly. To Ocean he looked almost like a giant fishbone, skinny and yet deceiving. He seemed to have something special about him, but she couldn’t tell what.

The other, flaxen haired one which had put up the worst fight had none of the same tact. Indeed, it, he, she, whatever, Ocean couldn’t tell exactly, looked much like a regular viking, except smaller and perhaps thinner, though no less deadly. In fact, both of them looked quite young. Against her better notions, Ocean felt some sympathy for them. They had probably been running from wolves, she could smell their scent on them (as well as copious amounts of sweat), and had ducked down in here, thinking that perhaps it would be safe, for indeed they had blocked the entrance, not expecting there to be anyone down there. To their surprise, they’d only found a grumpy dragon who had not hesitated to beat them up.

Ocean wasn’t really sure about these two, but nonetheless she nosed them both into a sitting position next to each other. Would she take them outside and set them down, or should she kill them before they could gain vengeance? A more mature dragon, experienced with vikings, would have executed them on the spot, but Ocean was young, green, and perhaps most of all, curious. Besides, if she took them outside they’d probably freeze to death in the cold winter. That would be heartless.

Well, for safety precautions, she’d better take away anything that could be a possible weapon. Rocks, stones, and that peculiar curved tree limb were all dragged out of sight and put away. Even though the boy had a strange kind of… smile perhaps, on his face, she couldn’t be sure.

Now what she needed was a good rest. Mornings were always a good time to make decisions after all. Ocean yawned and lay down, looking over at the little humans every so often. Then, still innocent and trusting, she allowed herself to fall asleep, even despite her natural fears nagging at her like flies. Just… until.. morning.

* * *


	15. Headaches and Hiccups

“Unn. Where am I?”

Hiccup woke up first, only to find a stone wall staring him down in the face. Everything was hazy and white, and his brain felt like it was lost in a fog. An acid fog too, for a throbbing headache threatened to split his head open, and every part of his body was sore beyond belief. One of his shoulders felt worse than the other, and a vaguely familiar goo covered it and parts of his nose, inside and out. His chest felt… off somehow, and if he had not broken at least a rib, he must have sprained one. A parched tongue only added to the long, painful list.

For a moment his thoughts reflexively shot back to his Berk days, and he felt he was back in Gothi’s hut, nursing his wounds after yet another invention had backfired, which happened all too often around here. He closed his eyes to block out the painful glow of the rock above him, a dull glimmer that seemed to burn him inside. Involuntarily he used an aching hand to cover his face as new pain manifested itself in his sinuses.

He was all too familiar with the healer’s hut, although the granite siding was new. Or was it a roof? He couldn’t tell, but it seemed that the elder had decided to lay him on the floor as punishment for one too many visits. Still, there was something missing, like an black, deep pit in his mind, begging to be filled with the proper memories.

And why was it so cold? Usually he would have been able to hear the fire crackling, but now there was an uncomfortable silence where the hustle and bustle of the healer could sometimes be heard over the gentle hum of the village’s ongoing activity. Now he could hear nothing, only his own, painful, breathing. Well, not exactly nothing. A cool breeze rustled the small things around him and whispered gently through his ears, calming him somewhat.

The light spilling in was golden, and while not particularly heating, it did serve to warm him somewhat. From its color Hiccup judged that it was afternoon or evening, though he could have been wrong. The stars of summer wavered, passed, and then came to him again. A squirrel chattered away in the forest, squawking over his stolen acorns.

As the mist between his ears dissipated, he began to recollect himself, slowly but surely. Then, like a small trickle, some of his memories began to pour in, haphazard, disconnected and not necessarily in chronological order, but enough, and the dark patch of his brain began to fill with his past words and even some actions, but those were still hazy.

An island… Berk was an island. A different island then. A camp now. Food. A fire. Some hills. Himself on top of the hills, looking out at the land, features that Future Hiccup didn’t recognize from anywhere. Snowy shores, with the waves lapping up contentedly on the beachhead.

As much as he pressed himself, there was not much more, and in all of it, there was not a single soul on the scene anywhere. That could wait for the time being then. For now he had much more pressing issues. One, rather important example being; where was he?

“Convenient.” he muttered to nobody in particular. “At least my past self could’ve left some directions.”

His neck hurt as much as the rest of his body, and raising it would be difficult, for his muscles seemed more weary then they often were, even for a puny boy with no stamina like himself. Big surprise. Not.

Hiccup smiled briefly. At least he remembered that about himself.

But soon came another big surprise. There was blood on his shirt, blood wiped everywhere, and some still sticky and liquid to the touch, though the wound had closed before he had awoken. Dark red stains traced down the inside of his clothes, down his legs even, though a small pool of it had formed on the floor, congealing in the tiny cracks and seeping into the more porous stones. He shivered. That thought would give him nightmares, if he let it run amok, and so he quickly thrust it out of his mind.

Have you ever felt when you’re sleeping in that you need just five more minutes? That’s what Hiccup felt like, as every bone in his body willed him to stay put, and he obliged, reasoning to himself that he needed time to find his bearings.

At last he forced himself to look over, rubbing his eyes with his one good hand, though it only seemed to drive in more dirt. Suddenly he did a double take. It couldn’t be. And yet, laying next to him was… Astrid. How did she get there in all this mess? And where was everyone else? Surely there would be someone around, unless he was gravely mistaken somehow.

Almost at once his head cleared completely, and he forgot everything, but remembered it in turn, while his heart rate skyrocketed to rather unhealthy levels.

On the floor lay a small, girlish body, her chest rising and falling almost imperceptibly, a few bruises on her face, bad ones, though not so serious as to be fatal, or indeed anywhere close, though her shoulder pads were hewn and riven as by an axe. A partially unbraided strand of flaxen hair drooped over one of her eyelids, tracing along her face as lithely as a swallow, billowing in the slight, yet unseen, wind.

Her head was partially propped up against the wall, but it had slid down during the night and undone the best part of her nearly invisible, brown hair tie, which she had somehow managed to keep on during the entire ordeal that the island had thrown at them. Astrid’s eyes were closed, though due to the slant of her head they angled up a little, staring at nothing in particular but still giving him the creeps.

Her knife was nowhere to be seen, nor her bow, though Hiccup had only hazy memories of making it. What a sight he’d been, trying to cut the perfect wood for the arrow shafts from a tree, all in the dark to make sure that she didn’t see him. He chuckled half-heartedly.

Two chickadees sung their tittering notes from a hiding place in the brush, perfectly at home with the chill weather.

Grit mixed with white powder on the floor, though it was not chalk, it clung to his arms and legs with a vengeance, and itched him in all the wrong places. The tiny, razor-like stones were spread about as far as he dared to look, sticking on the small, flat objects that seemed to decorate everything around here, obscuring their true colors and confirming that he was not in Gothi’s hut after all. This place could use a good sweeping, he thought drowsily.

To his right lay a fresh coat of snow that covered everything in a white dust, with grass blades poking through it in a small clearing, almost light enough to be called a glade, though the sun shone only weakly upon the cave. Needle-like icicles streamed down from the entrance, their undulations vaguely fascinating. A few small crystals hung from the trees, which also had icicles hanging down from them.

Hiccup had the sudden urge to taste one and see what it was like, ignorant of the fact that his tongue would probably freeze. A dry mouth will do that to you.

Hiccup braced himself with his elbow, then tried to rise, not without a groan. It hurt like crazy, but soon he was sitting up well enough, back to the stones for extra support, though he still found himself staring at the better side of a rock wall. His shoulder still ached, and when he rolled it experimentally, it stung him with a sharp pain in one of the muscles, and he didn’t dare to move it again, except in the smallest increments, which were maddeningly slow.

While he had been busy settling himself, some of the more… coherent memories had started to flow in, and dimly he noted that the wicked barb that had embedded itself close to his collarbone had worked it’s way out and was lying on the floor innocently, looking for all the world like a children’s plaything that had been dropped by it’s owner if it hadn’t been for the serrated edges and tiny hooks that covered the skeleton of the deadly quill.

Of course, Nadder spines don’t just throw themselves, and Hiccup started to get a twisting feeling in the pit of his stomach, a feeling that told him they weren’t alone. He felt rather than saw eyes boring into him from the side, measuring him, perhaps finding him wanting (all too likely), and he did not dare look toward them, fearing what thing might be the owner of such piercing instruments. A cold hand seemed to creep down the back of his neck, sending shivers down his spine and making his hair stand straight up, while goose bumps appeared from nowhere and covered his arms.

But curiosity is one of the most powerful human impulses, and slowly, cautiously, Hiccup turned his head, body tensing involuntarily while beads of sweat broke out under his tunic, despite the chill. First a tail, then a leg, then the back of a wing swept into his vision, where he stopped, his courage wavering while the last of the fight replayed itself in his head, though he didn’t remember all of it, having already been knocked silly by an accidental blow, also to the shoulder. He grimaced, his tiny hint of a beard twisting while his cheeks contracted.

A small battle played itself out in his mind. Hopefully the dragon was dead, else Astrid would not have dared to fall asleep without her dagger nearby. She certainly wasn’t dead, for her gentle breathing rustled every so often, though she hadn’t woken up quite yet. He dared to take another look, reasoning that there wasn’t anything to be afraid of. Still, a strange sense of foreboding filled him.

And still, his anxiety only grew. His eyes traced along the dragon’s huge figure until he reached it’s face. But instead of looking dead, it’s face was quite alive, and with a shock Hiccup saw that it was watching him, even as a shadow rolled over his back, the sun blocked out and a sudden cool beyond what had become normal set in. His heart jumped into his mouth and got a death grip on his jaw, while he involuntarily swallowed dryly.

They just stared at each other, and neither moved, Astrid notwithstanding, who shifted in her sleep and let her head fall down a little, a stray bang spilling even more onto her nose. He let out a long breath that he didn’t even know he’d been holding, and some of the pressure melted away, but still the dragon continued watching him with that reptilian stare that made him want to cower, to find a place to hide.

Not knowing what to do, Hiccup awkwardly waved. That didn’t turn out so well, for the Nadder’s tail shot up, spines extended. He flinched and shut his eyes, butting up against the wall hard, waiting for the inevitable pain that would surely come. A moment passed. Nothing happened, other than his nervous fidgeting.

One quick prayer to Thor later, Hiccup unsquinted his eyes to see the dragon looking at him with an amused expression, clearly having had a nice laugh at his expense, if that was even possible for such a creature. It seemed to smile, a twinkle of mirth somehow, though he just couldn’t pin it down, and that was frustrating enough without having it giving him the creeps.

Somewhere next to him Astrid stirred a little more, waking up perhaps, and the dragon shifted it’s attention off Hiccup and onto her, which he wasn’t sure that he liked, though it didn’t look malicious, even… curious if he hadn’t known better. Still the dragon did not move, simply watching them with a gentler gaze than before, less to size them up and more to observe without disturbance.

At least that was his conclusion; Astrid wouldn’t be so civil when she awoke, of that he was certain. A restraining hand unconsciously found it’s way to her shoulder, though he wasn’t sure it would make all that much of a difference. She could be very… temperamental at times, and he knew that all too well. An old bruise came to mind, still tender to the touch, and throbbing now that he thought about it again.

A tiny flake of snow floated past his nose and gently onto the floor, where it promptly melted as he watched. But it was followed by another, and another, so that soon infinitesimal flecks of frozen dust covered the back of his worn and bloodied tunic, which did nothing to stop the cold whatsoever. A few small bits of snow found their way into his hair, and when he ran his hand through the auburn locks some parts felt moist to the touch, but not at all cold or unpleasant, only smooth, and, comfortable.

The dragon did not move after that, only watched from a distance, and Hiccup began to wind down a little, reasoning that things were not all bad. He’d have a handful when Astrid got wind of this, of that he was sure, but she didn’t look like she was going anywhere, at least not for the time being. More snowflakes found their way in, but it was not a downpour yet, for he could still see the trees when he looked out. It had been a mild year, and they were lucky to have gotten this far.

You’re still alive and kicking, Hiccup reminded himself wryly. It’s not over yet. There’s still hope, as long as that dragon doesn’t kill us, we’ll be fine. Of course, his inner pep talk failed miserably. Still, since when had he been on such good terms with Astrid? Not since his wee childhood days, a time so long ago that it seemed like a good dream for him, a reminder of the good old days that the old people always talked about, whether he was interested in listening to them or not.

Of course, there wouldn’t be any of that if he froze to death. The chill had seeped in while he was thinking, and while he had a few furs on him, they weren’t doing much good, standing by as the biting air had infiltrated his skin.

Moving keeps you warm, he’d once heard someone say, but he had never needed to test that theory before. Well, maybe once or twice, but that was really embarrassing and he’d never heard the end of it for his ridiculousness. Best not to mention it now.

He stretched out his arms, or arm, since one of them was too painful to do much of anything with, and started swinging it around, helicopter like. That helped, and the lingering soreness that had been present in his muscles since the night before melted away, though he was still dead tired, but it did him some good nonetheless. His knees were jarred from the running, sending small shocks of pain his way every time he moved them. Hiccup didn’t get much farther than wiggling his toes when it came to his lower parts.

A few warm-ups later, during which the dragon would not stop giving him curious looks, he had shaken most of the weariness from his system.

Of course, the same could not be said for Astrid, who was still lying on the floor without having moved the entire time. He experimentally felt her fingers, half-hoping and half-dreading whether she would wake up or not. But she didn’t, and soon Hiccup had discovered that she remained quite warm, despite the inclement state of the heavens. Still, sitting inside the doorway wasn’t at all pleasant, for him at least. You can never tell what people are thinking when they’re unconscious after all, though he doubted she could feel it.

He looked over at the dragon, which was still laying where it had been all morning, though it seemed to be taking a rest. At any rate, it wasn’t watching him anymore, or was at least pretending to mind its own business. It was unnerving to say the least, having eyes pry into your back when you’re not looking, and even when you are, always weighing you down like a ton of bricks, and he was glad to have that load off him, even for only a moment, and he used that fleeting moment to survey his surroundings.

A white glow filled the cave, replacing the golden light that had earlier streamed in so lavishly. The interior looked dim and drab besides than the dragon, which seemed to shine, though more in some places more than others, almost like a cat’s fur when it has been interrupted halfway through a proper cleaning with it’s paws. The floor was relatively clean, with a few small stones scattered about where they had fallen, and of course the ever present grit covering every surface, not sparing a single place.

What surprised him more were the pine boughs arrayed in thin stacks, some bore down upon by the dragon, almost like a makeshift bed, almost like his own that he’d had… what, only last morning. Those things all seemed so long ago now, like the memories of Berk before that.

Caution manifesting itself in every motion, Hiccup stood up, first with his left leg, then his right, which had been folded in on itself and had gone to sleep. The invisible needles driving into his skin were not pleasant, not at all, and he nearly fell down after so long a time spent sitting. That would’ve been the typical Hiccup thing to do.

But somehow he managed to keep his balance, tottering a little but mostly steady on his feet. It felt good to be up and about again, but he felt, or imagined he felt, the gaze of the dragon upon him. He glanced back at it. Drowsy it seemed, but as he peered further, he saw that one of its eyelids was half-open, and looking further still, that the pupil within was watching him discreetly.

Keeping his hands in plain sight, he tried to bring Astrid up in a fireman’s carry. You can imagine how that went. He yawned against his will. Some part of him refused to leave Astrid on the doorstep without anything to keep her warm. Heck, this was basic gentlemanly conduct, and he had been steeped in it since an early age.

So finally he settled to dragging her (lightly of course), over to a small nook in the back of the cave, away from the dragon but still close enough to the entrance to afford a quick escape, should they need it. It was much warmer there, and no snow blew onto his hair anymore, which by now was thoroughly soaked. Outside, the snow piled up on the doorstep, almost an inch thick now, and deepening fast, though still remaining fluffy.

Soon the tiny flecks began to become more sticky, settling on top of the snowbanks and compressing the snow beneath to the point where a weak crust was formed, only thick enough to hold a squirrel or bird and nothing more. Biting snowflakes dug into their coats, embedding themselves deeply and matting down Hiccup’s hair, even if he had moved away from the entrance, which was now wallowing in huge drifts of the wet, white dust. He pitied the predators trying to find a meal in such bad weather, then frowned when he remembered the wolves and the destruction they had wrought to their precious home.

How right he was. Somewhere out there, a fox floundered after a rabbit running for it’s burrow, neither making very much progress, as the snow stuck to their paws and made them slippery. A few times both of them even tripped on a hidden rock beneath the cold, impersonal blanket that covered the land, making everything under it invisible, save the hills, and even they too were obscured by drifts.

Even the yaks on the hidden plains, accustomed to the cold as they were, had problems. By now the snow was so deep that only a dedicated rooting could dig to the bottom of it, where their food lay waiting. It clung to their hooves and to their fur, shaggy coats of it flaking off and being replaced in turn by more snow. Their breath froze on their noses and in them, coating their nostrils with transparent ice, always melting yet always solidifying. Don’t you hate it when your boogers freeze?

Snow. It was falling so thickly that he could barely see the trees outside anymore, their limbs sagging from the wet weight that suddenly encumbered them. It drove with increasing fury into everything unfortunate enough to be exposed to the elements, blown by the intensifying west wind that seemed to rip the warmth from everything living, and much else besides.

A roaring sound picked up as the gale blew through the pine trees north of them, throwing their pine cones and their needles around like they were children’s playthings to be messed with, though the limbs themselves did not break, they stretched and moaned pitifully, thrashing everywhere. The whole forest seemed to be thrashing itself, the trunks of small trees whipped hither and thither, smashed by the same force sustained by their elder brethren. Indeed, many lay upon the ground, still, their stems snapped at the base while splinters laid everywhere, though all were eventually carried away by the raging tempest.

The many groans of the forest elevated to a cacophony that filled the air, augmenting a rising wail that threatened to blow through the very stones of their cave, piling the windward side of it into drifts ten feet high while the rest of the windswept woods was almost laid bare. But, whether by a stroke of luck or conscious design, the entrance pointed south-west, keeping most of the interior high and dry. Had they remained at their old camp they certainly would have been blown away, such was the fury of the storm, which was now really a true blizzard, powered by the very waters of the ocean itself. There was no telling when it would blow out, or even if it would do so, or whether it would continue all winter until spring came.

All the same, the creatures of the island would just have to go hungry. And speaking of hunger, Hiccup felt his stomach growl as it began to ask for food, in a rather impolite manner I might add, though that really wouldn’t be all that necessary. The dragon perked up and began to watch him again, having drifted off during the storm for some reason or another on the pine boughs.

The drifts had accumulated while he’d been thinking, and now the doorway was almost totally blocked with snow roughly the consistency of coffee cake, trapping the warm air within, but also keeping it’s occupants holed up inside, unable to hunt or even stretch their muscles when they inevitably got restless.

Did they even have anything left with which to hunt? Hiccup looked around, but the only weapon he could see was Astrid’s bow, standing upright against the wall tip-first, but with no arrows. Had Astrid used them all? Ah, there lay the answer, right there on the floor in front of him. The remains of an arrow shaft lay before him, ramrod straight, even down to the scratch marks where he had erred while carving away the small imperfections that marred an otherwise perfect rod. He reached forward and picked it up, snapped it. The tantalizing aroma of cedar reached his nose, wafting on the stale air like a hint of spring. He hoped that it was a good omen.

Now that he looked, he could see other broken shafts littered here and there, some in not so good of a condition as the one he had originally found, but all bearing the subtle marks of his unique craftsmanship. A glint of brownish light found his eye, and lo, Several shards of flint were scattered about on the floor, having been swept to the side by the dragon. In the position they had been put, it was no wonder that he hadn’t seen them earlier. Smaller pieces, almost the size of dust were spread evenly in the grit around the larger shards, forming their own twinkling reflections, often different colors from the main body of the arrowhead.

The dagger, Astrid’s dagger, remained unnoticed, having been flattened like a sheet of tin foil the moment Ocean had turned her attention to it, though the blade was made of good steel. Not much could stand up to a dragon’s strength and live to tell the tale, especially when that dragon happened to be nineteen-hundred pounds and chockful of muscle with extra sharp talons to boot. In any case, the only weapons close at hand remained maddeningly out of reach.

Hiccup suddenly found himself fondling Astrid’s hair, the soft locks running through his fingers like water, and he began to hum, an old habit of his, seldom indulged in these strenuous days spent as they were on such an arduous island. For he found himself always toiling before the hunt, and after it, while other projects occupied his spare time, and then he would be off to bed, exhausted by the afternoon’s work.

And even before that life had been tough on him, almost as if he had been cursed at birth so bad was his luck. But now, even in such an unlikely situation as this, there was still hope yet, and there would be till the bitter end of it all. So hum he did, and it was calming to him, giving him purchase to think when before there was no time.

Perhaps it was a curious fancy of his, or a figment of his overactive imagination, but even as he watched out of the corner of his eyes the dragon seemed to relax, letting its wings droop while it’s warm breaths became more regular, and, comfortable. Just to get a reaction, Hiccup abruptly cut off his music, pinched the bridge of his nose. Immediately the dragon snapped back to attention, neck stiffening as a blue head shot up.

That startled him a little, but now he was more used to all the dragon’s antics, so that he did not cower away like before, but instead hummed softly once again, not to a particular rhythm or beat mind you, but a pleasant tune, not louder or more overbearing then the torrent of the storm, but with a loveliness that broke through the cacophony, sometimes falling, sometimes rallying to match a gust of wind or wailing howl. Snow formed ice drifts outside, blocking him inside, breaking tree limbs and throwing them to the ground, but Hiccup did not care.

Then a different sound arose, similar to the storm’s and yet special, rising to match his nasally song until they matched almost perfectly, a throaty tone shadowing his and yet complementing it. And it was coming from the dragon. Now Hiccup did not dare stop his music, instead starting to whistle. It was like an understanding had passed between them, and for now the two put their differences aside and made something together. It was a time that he would look back upon with relish, despite the danger.

Of course, Astrid just had to come in and ruin things. She had been awoken by the noise of the storm, was now rubbing her sore eyes blearily until…

“Why is there a dragon _in our house_!”

For a moment the world seemed to fall still, even the blizzard forgot to howl for a second, or so it seemed to them. Then everything exploded.


	16. Conversations

* * *

** Disclaimer. I don’t own HTTYD. If I did, Night Furies would have an electronic warfare suite . **

* * *

It had been almost a week since Gobber’s ship had come back without his son, but time had not healed his wounds. Every morning since then Stoick had trotted down the stairwell to the kitchen, hoping against hope that the past had been but a dream, that his son would be standing there with breakfast in hand and a cheery expression on his face, a witty joke ready to be cracked on a whim. Now, only an empty seat greeted him, while the fireplace, which before had been always lit, now burned to embers without anyone to stoke and feed it.

And as he sat in his chair that evening, looking at his untouched plate, it seemed that there would be no rest for the weary. Perhaps he was truly doomed to be alone in his life.

The rest of the village didn’t see his grief, couldn’t, because he didn’t let them. Still, there was an uneasy feeling that seemed to wrap around everyone, seeping into the alleys and darkening them like a flitting shadow. It manifested itself in his eyes; in the times he would seem far away from whoever was talking to him, how he’d jump when asked a question, like he wasn’t really listening to the others had to say.

It was in the actions of the young people of Berk. The twins drifted around aimlessly, lost in their heads, kicking stones with their shoes until they flopped into the sea. There were no more pranks, and they even stopped arguing with each other, as unbelievable as that might have been, while Fishlegs retreated deeper into his calculations and papers without anyone to talk to; he had always been, if not a friend, then a confident to Hiccup. Even Snotlout, who normally flaunted his strength to everyone he met without fail seemed downcast, doing his chores methodically, but his heart wasn’t in it.

The weather, which had once been so clear, became overcast and gloomy with the coming of winter, while the temperature, which had held steadily above freezing for the last several weeks, dropped rapidly, forming a dangerous icy coating and turning the various small pools around the island into hardened blocks so cold that you could put your tongue on them and have it get stuck.

The wind blew hard and long with a vengeance, biting the cheeks of those outside and digging into their coats with a vengeance, rattling the rafters of those lucky enough to have them and blasting the snow into every crack and cranny, while those without scarves quickly found their throats turned raw and scratchy.

Snow began to pile up bit by bit over the long North Atlantic nights, blocking in the doors and finding its way through improperly swathed thatching before melting and dripping into the beds and their unfortunate occupants. Snowshoes became a way of life, and many a loving father built his children a sled, with shining runners and flying ribbons, while the women tightened their belts and locked their larders.

Such was village life. This was the way it had been for nearly seven generations, and they had always come out fine. That didn’t mean Stoick actually had to like it, he thought bitterly, as he chucked some more wood on the fire, which always seemed to only warm up only the three inches of the room closest to it and nothing else, though it crackled and popped like a madman having a coughing fit in his death throes. The flames danced and flared without a care in the world. If only real life could be so simple.  
Heavy snow thumped outside as someone approached his door. There was a slight drag in the visitors step. There was only one person he knew who walked like that.

Before the man could knock (knowing him, he probably wouldn’t bother anyway), Stoick greeted him. The door opened, with it came the snow, whisking and whirling around his living room, driven by the wind. In stepped Gobber wearing a heavy overcoat, who promptly hung up his hat as the door slammed with a bang behind him, shutting out the howl of the storm.

There was a moment of relative silence as the blacksmith started to kick off his boots, first his left, and then his right. They both ended upside down on the floor backwards and totally switched around, as shoes often do, though they were waterlogged and weighed down by the wet snow. Gobber peeled off his jacket and the coat on it and flopped the pieces of clothing over a chair, where they wasted no time in falling onto the floor.

Then he unabashedly helped himself to Stoick’s uneaten food and started to eat heartily, during which time neither of them said a word. Finally he pushed back the plate and patted his stomach, letting the food sink in. Only then did they begin to talk.

“Have you come back to badger me about domestic affairs again? Or has the shop burned down from your antics?” Stoick said, then sighed.

Gobber didn’t say anything, because he wasn’t sure about where to begin. Tact was not a Viking strength in general, much less with him.

“How do I put this? You’re not.. You haven’t been doing so well lately,” he tried. When Stoick didn’t answer, he kept talking. “Ever since Hiccup disappeared yeh’ve been actin kinda weird. Staring off at who knows what, not really paying attention to people when they’re talkin’. It’s not who you are. Who knows. Maybe Hiccup is still alive, maybe he isn’t. But it’s not going ta help if you keep moping around. The people need a leader right now, ta help them through the winter, and they look up to you.”

“Could you tell me something I didn’t know already. Every time I wake up in the mornings there’s something missing, and I don’t like it.”

“Having breakfast in bed, now are we?” Gobber examined his horrendously oversized fake tooth, then popped it in Stoick’s still-full mug, which he had also managed to confiscate from the other side of the table.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. I know the village needs me.. It’s just that..”

“That what?” prodded Gobber.

“I miss Hiccup. There. I admitted it!” Stoick threw his hands in the air. “I miss his face, I miss his familiar step. Hell, I even miss his sarcasm sometimes. Sure, he got into trouble sometimes, well, a lot of times, but it was normal. Now he’s gone. Not to mention he’s my heir.” Stoick leaned back in his seat, then rubbed his beard. “I’m getting too old for this. First my wife, now my son. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were next.”

“Not me. I’ve lived too long to die just yet.” Gobber finally fished up his fake tooth from the mug, then planted it firmly in his jaw. “Although I do miss my apprentice. Guess what?”

“What?”

“Hiccup actually makes – er, made most of the stuff in my shop. From the tiniest nails to the heaviest broadswords. He pretty much took over the place for himself.”

“Really. I never heard that from him.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s because you didn’t bother to ask. At any rate, a few more years and I would’ve retired. He’d almost earned it, believe that or not.”

“And now he’s gone. Maybe I took the wrong approach.”

“Ah ah ah. Don’t go around blaming yourself. If wishes were fishes we’d all cast.. Dammit, I forgot what I was supposed to say.”

They both chuckled.

“Anyway, you can’t just drown in your grief forever. If he’s still alive, somehow, you’re going to have to make it up to him, and then that’ll be over with. If he’s not,” At this point Gobber shrugged. “then you remember him, the way he wanted to be remembered.”

Stoick thought for a moment.

“I don’t really know what he liked, as crazy as that sounds.”

“Well, he always used to have this strange penchant for stacking his money just so. He’d make sure that every edge was lined up right, and if it wasn’t, he’d bang it with his hammer till it was the way he liked it. Then he’d wrap it up in leather. It was one of his weirder ideas, he had a lot of those.”

“Crazy ideas.”

“Not all the time. You know my grinder, right?” Gobber asked, then continued without stopping for an answer. “That was his design. He’d bought some marbles from Johann a couple years back, but lost interest with them. Then one day when my old piece broke down he suddenly said ‘aha!’, and ran out of the shop just like that. When he came back he had those marbles in hand, and he dragged my machine into his corner and stayed there for two days. Lucky I had a few of the old sharpening stones.”

“How tall of a tale is this?”

“I only added a few personal embellishments.”

Stoick raised one of his eyebrows, obviously skeptical.

“Well, he was in his corner working for a day, making all sorts of noise even after I’ve left. When I came back in the morning, there was a brand new grinder, polished too, and it was just sitting in the middle of my shop with no apprentice in sight. I wouldn’t underestimate him.”

“Sometimes it seems that you know him better than I do.”

“I wouldn’t put it past myself.”

The two men fell quiet and stared into the fire, each thinking of their own problems. For Stoick, it was trying to wrap his head around the fact that his last remaining family member was probably dead. ‘Dead’, the cynical part of his brain mocked him. ‘That means he isn’t going to come back, ever again. What are you going to do about it?’ For Gobber, it was his old friend that worried him. Would he ever cheer up again, or would he sink into a black depression like he’d so nearly done after the death of his wife. For all Gobber’s experience, he had absolutely no idea, and that was what scared him. On the bright side, there weren’t going to be any more random explosions every other day.

Eventually the silence just got a little awkward.

“Ahem.” Gobber made a horrendous fake cough. “In other news, Gruffnut and Oakberry were just betrothed yesterday. They’re asking for the Chief’s blessing. Had a nice dowry too. Think you should humor them?”

“What’s an engagement without the Chief. Who am I to refuse.” Stoick laughed, then stretched his arms.

Gobber grinned devilishly. Now this was the Stoick he remembered from the good old days, back when he’d been courting Valka and daring his brothers to jump off sea stacks a hundred feet above the crashing waves.

“Anything else I should know about?”

‘Well, Mildew is wondering when he’s going to get his mansion back, and how much money he can extort from you in delayed construction fees.”

“They don’t call him Mildew for nothing. Why he isn’t covered in the stuff yet I can’t imagine.”

“Astrid’s parents are getting along pretty well, given the situation. The Hoffersons were always a good bunch when it came down to the wire. And me undies haven’t needed a cleaning for the last few weeks.”

Stoick groaned.

“Things are all good on the home front. That’s about all. Call me if you need me.”

Gobber reached for his overcoat without looking, thinking that it would still be on the table where he’d left it, and was befuddled when he discovered that it wasn’t there. He looked over and saw where it had slid onto the floor.

“So that’s where you went, yeh little bugger.”

He picked it up and put it on, not without some considerable fiddling with his buttons. Stoick saw that one of his boots was under the table and tossed it to him.

“Thanks.”

Gobber stood up and made to go out, but paused midstep.

“If I ever collected all the money you owe me for therapy expenses, I’d be a rich man.” With that he pulled on his gloves and opened the door. More snow blasted in, buffeting the hinges and making them creak. That reminded Stoick. He really needed to oil that darned thing. Finally the bulky form of Gobber disappeared into the night’s fuzzy snow and the door closed, but not before a few, horribly out of tune notes of the blacksmith’s favorite song seeped through the cracks.

_Well I’ve got my axe and I’ve got my mace,_

_I’m a Viking through and through,_

_I’ve pulled my cart and I’ve set my pace,_

_I’m a Viking through and through._

Stoick resisted the urge to roll his eyes and chuckled. Now he was looking forwards to a good night’s rest, and his bed was looking more and more appealing every minute. His last conscious thoughts before falling asleep were of wishing Hiccup well, wherever he was.

* * *

_Meanwhile, somewhere on Sword Island._

“Just because that looks edible to you doesn’t mean that I’m going to eat it!”

The dragon was looking unabashedly at Hiccup, who was busy trying to inhale air through his mouth while Astrid tried not to laugh. A brownish-green pile of half digested something was pooled on the floor, with myriad strands of flesh protruding from the pile here and there. It smelled disgusting, even by viking standards. It was quite ridiculous, really, and anyone coming upon the scene could be forgiven for wondering how on Midgard this had happened.

The reason was this; being cooped up in a cave after the blizzard, Hiccup had naturally started to get rather hungry, and his stomach had begun to grumble, leaving him with a peculiar empty feeling that wouldn’t go away. He’d fidgeted, and played tic-tac-toe with himself in the dirt (Astrid was sulking at the moment because she’d lost the fight), but with growing boys, their appetite grows almost as fast as their bodies, and soon he found himself ravenously hungry (thirst was another matter: there was more than enough snow around).

“Could someone actually get some food around here,” he’d finally asked, and at the same time he had pointed to his stomach.

The dragon started to wretch, and to Hiccup it looked like it was to coughing up something from its bowels, or so it seemed from the awful racket it was making. Astrid, who’d known what was about to happen, edged away. Hiccup was not so lucky. When the goop finally came out after what seemed like a century of sneezing and hacking and shuffling, it had very nearly splattered his boots with the foul smelling fluid.

“When I asked for something to eat, this was definitely not what I had in mind.” he deadpanned.

When it became clear that Hiccup was not going to eat what the dragon had ‘prepared’ for him, it decided to take matters into its own hands – er, claws.

Before Hiccup could resist, he’d been picked up by the scruff of his shirt and turned upside down by an inquisitive Nadder, his hair fluttering over his face every time the dragon took a breath. Then, slowly at first, but steadily accelerating, the dragon swung him over the steaming goo.

By the time Hiccup realized what Ocean was doing it was far too late. He struggled anyway.

“No. No no. Bad dragon! Put me down. Falling is not in my best interests right now!” He tried to kick but didn’t have the leg strength to even faze the dragon, much less set himself free, and even then he would’ve dropped into the pile anyway.

Then, with an unceremonious ‘plop’, the dragon let go, and Hiccup’s face became the new home for some partially digested rabbit. Astrid, who before could hardly contain her giggles, was now rolling around on the floor laughing fit to burst and pointing at his nose.

“It’s not funny.” he tried to say, but some goop got into his mouth and he had to spit it out. Astrid just kept on laughing. Evidently she thought it was very funny.

“Remind me never to let a dragon give me meals again,” Hiccup said, just before he dunked his head into the snowpack. A few minutes later he wriggled out again, this time with _frozen _partially digested rabbit mush stuck on his face and his hair slicked back, frosted over by the cold.

Almost an hour and a whole lot of.. choice.. words later, the last of the gunk was off, but the smell would remain on his skin for the next few days. Naturally, they were all trapped in a small cave where the smell would never have a chance to air out.

They all slept on opposite sides of the cavern that night.

* * *

  
**I love it when people give me feedback, so if you have any thoughts about the story or just a simple kudos - please, leave them!**


	17. Different Childhoods

**AN:**

**Written while listening to I’d Love to Change the World by Ten Years After, Through the Fire and Flames, both versions, and Pumping Adrenaline 1 by a man named Nick. Also, Rise Against – The Violence and Monody. **

* * *

Hiccup was hungry. No, scratch that. He was almost starving. At the moment he was cooped up inside a small cave, having not eaten anything since before their run from the wolves and subsequent dragon fight, with said dragon currently residing next to them, which really wasn’t helping his nerves at all. Oh, and had he mentioned that they were snowed in by a monster drift created by probably the worst snowstorm on the island since at least before he’d been born? No, and that wasn’t helping either.

At any rate it didn’t look like they’d be getting outside any time soon, and from personal experience this storm could last for days on end before blowing itself out. Which led to them being royally screwed.

Still, he had an idea for a prototype ice-box he could make that would stay cooler for a longer time and prevent food from spoiling, which was nasty (and he should know, because sometimes his father _really _needed to pay more attention to where he left the meat) and would probably be a godsend to one of his distant cousins who could barely afford to…

Hiccup’s musings were interrupted by a close thud and a kicking noise, followed by tiny crystals of snow drifting down from the white wall beside him and onto his nose.

“Stupid snow!”

Naturally, it was Astrid, who had long ago decided that there wasn’t enough space inside the den, and was attempting to break out of the drift and out into the open. Preferably not with her bare hands. Even Vikings weren’t that dumb.

Astrid kicked the drift again, but the snow was about as responsive as a doorknob. She paused, looked back at the dragon, which hadn’t stirred, then blew on her hands a few times before kicking the snow again. Water pooled around her feet as the ice melted from the cozy heat of the den.

“Need a shovel?”, Hiccup asked, standing up and brushing himself off. “Because I don’t think you’re going to break through by just kicking the snow.”

“I don’t see how else I’m going to do it. And besides, I’m bored.” Astrid began grumbling under her breath about something Hiccup decided he might not want to hear.

“I’m bored too. And more than a little uneasy. Dragons, after all.” He gestured to the dozing Nadder just behind them. “Maybe we could have a chat instead?”

Astrid didn’t even waste a breath to consider.

“No. I’m getting out of here. Smells too much like dragon breath and fish for me to be sitting around comfortably chatting with you while the blasted snow just keeps on coming and coming. It’s something to do while the snow keeps pounding away at the surface until we all die in here, or else find some means of escape.” She paused, then said, “At least we’re not dragon food. Then we’d smell even more terrible.”

Hiccup couldn’t help but stifle a chuckle.

“It’s nice to know you have a sense of humor, even if it is directed at me most of the time.”

He began to work the snow. It was a simple rhythm. Make a furrow with your fingers. Scoop, then dump it in a pile to your side. Blow on your hands a little, then put them in a pocket to warm up. Take them out, blow on your hands for a little more warmth, make a furrow with your fingers, and so on until you got too cold. Step back, have Astrid step in. Listen to her make the same rhythm. Let her step back, take her spot, and repeat.

After a little while, Hiccup had a question, and they began to talk.

“Do you have a brother?”

“It’s not really a question of whether or not I have a brother rather than how many I have. One that’s older than me by two years, and a few younger ones. And I have a baby sister. She’d be a year old by now. I’ve missed her first birthday.” Astrid frowned.

“Are they all as annoying as me? That would be a shame.”

“It’s not that they’re particularly bad, especially compared to you. They do boy stuff, and it bothers me sometimes when they don’t listen to me. All boasting that they were going to be the next greatest warriors when they grew up and that kind of thing. Mostly my big brother.”

“What’s he look like? I might of seen him at the forge but I’m not sure.”

“He’s about average in height. Thinner than my dad but only by a little. He has golden hair like me and a big nose. Oh, and he likes his tunics brown with a red stripe down the middle.”

“Yeah. I’ve seen him. I was working on some nails this summer when a guy comes up and hands in his sword, says he wants it fixed and right away. Well, Gobber was mad cause’ he’d disrupted our nail-making – you know how he is, doesn’t like any interruptions -, and yelled at him to go away. I stopped cause Gobber stopped, and I look over there, and there’s a fellow in a curious tunic scarpering away like a yak on loco. Then we went back to work. But I’ve definitely seen him.”

“That’s my brother. He can be terribly oblivious when he’s not paying attention, especially when he’s got his mind centered on one thing. Did you know that once he fell off the docks because he was running an errand for my father and forgot about where his feet were supposed to go? It was pretty urgent too.”

“I did not. What’s his name? Gotta attach a name to all these misadventures.”

“Torenn. That was my great-grandfather on my mother’s mother’s side.”

“I think he was my grandfather’s lieutenant back then. Good name.”

“My parents are hoping he’ll live up to it. What I’m hoping is that someone will deflate his ego, preferably before he goes and gets himself killed in some mad pursuit for glory.” A moment passed without conversation before Astrid felt the need to elaborate. “Torenn’s not really that bad. I’m just making him seem that way. What about you?”

“I’m an only child. Life for me consists of trying to avoid dad’s awful cooking and working at the forge. I get a little time to invent if I’m lucky, but that’s rare.”

“Did you just say the chief was bad at cooking?”

“He doesn’t try to be, it’s just that he can’t help burning whatever he’s trying to make. Running the village is a full-time job, and with all that sometimes he just forgets. Although if it wasn’t for me the house would probably have burned down a million times. Especially because of the stew.”

“He burned stew.” Astrid said, not quite believing it. Hiccup said nothing, only nodded. “He burned _stew._ How do you burn something that’s eighty percent water?”

“A dragon raid came when he was making dinner late because he had to solve a dispute. So there he is, making dinner, and then he hears the horn blow for a dragon attack. That night was one of the worst dragon raids for years. He fights hard for the village, delegates the cleanups, puts out the fires, and gets home just before dawn, only to find a stew-turned-rock so hard you could’ve broke a tooth on it. That was just the icing on the cake for a disastrous night.”

“How does he even feed himself?”

“Meh. After that he usually just ate in the Great Hall unless he had to cook at home. And now you know why I make my own food.”

“My mother is a great cook, but one year the hunting was bad, so we ate more from our garden. I remember biting down on a carrot and not being able to eat it because it was so stringy. That night we had a vegetable mash with some beef mixed in. I’ll never know how she got it so smooth, but it was one of my best dinners.”

“She probably cut up the root crops and soaked them in vinegar for a while. I find that improves the taste, which probably was what she did. I don’t really know, I’ve never tasted your mother’s cooking.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” said Astrid. She blew on her hands again before sticking them in her pockets to warm them up.

They kept working. An hour later they had progressed almost two feet into the snowpack on all sides, and they took a rest. If the drift was as thick as Hiccup thought it was then they could be through by the late afternoon, or what passed for an afternoon, given that the storm had not let up yet. It was warm work, except for their hands, and they risked dozing off by taking a break. Still, they were tired from the running and fighting of the past few days, and a small sleep wouldn’t do too much harm, right? They fell asleep.

At about noon the storm abated some, though a chilling wind still blew frozen dusts over the island, less snow fell with every hour, and in less than an hour the snowfall had become much less than before, though it would never truly stop. Wild things poked out of their holes questioningly and the birds began to twitter once more.

A snowshoe rabbit excavated snow from over one of the meadows with its huge hind foot to get at the grass beneath, while chickadees danced about on the precarious branches above the ground far below and sang their chirping songs. The deer, who at the start of the blizzard had immediately fled for shelter on the lee side of the many rocks and wind brakes on the island, tentatively ventured forth to their yards in search of greens to eat now that the worst was over.

Inside the cave a small pool of water was forming from the snow on the floor that had been moved by the humans.

Slowly but growing faster the snow melted, and the pool, which was really more of a puddle, began to explore the terrain, rather rapidly becoming a bigger puddle, connecting with the snow and ice on the floor and melting that too until it reached the very feet of Hiccup, who at that moment was dreaming that wild woozles had come up and started to nibble at his clothing to get fabric for their nests, and as they nibbled and nibbled his feet became colder and colder until he woke up with an – Ow! And there was that.

And at the same time the same thing was happening to Astrid except that she was dreaming of being flamed by dragons but at the same time the fire had turned cold and that she was stuck by her bare feet to a stone floor with her toes freezing off until – Ow! And then she woke up too.

And as she looked around Hiccup decided to make a very sarcastic but very true remark.

“Well, we’ve certainly slept in.”

Roughly a quarter of the cave was covered in a thin film of clear water that shone with the dull gray reflection of the rock ceiling which faded to bright blue scales where the pool nearly touched against the nose of the great creature.

* * *

Ocean stirred in her sleep, her dreams interrupted by a noise outside of her control. Everything was warm and fuzzy and the urge to open her eyes was distant. Then she felt a faint pang of hunger. While a dragon sleepy is a dragon reluctant, a hungry dragon is a force to be reckoned with. She opened her eyes.

Where the entrance had been there was nothing but snow. The two-legs, who had been making a steady recovery, instantly went into a fight stance, but without their shiny claws, she had nothing to fear from them. She stretched, then plowed through the snow and went outside.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”, said Hiccup. Astrid was more vocal.

“We’ve been sticking our cold hands into the freezing snow trying to get through all this time and then a dragon comes along and just spears through it!”

* * *

** Somewhere over the Irish foothills. **

A lone dragon wheeled across the sky. It was a Nadder, and it was Stulte.

* * *

**A/N:**

**I'd love to see your thoughts on this one - an older work from the middle of the last year of last decade, it begins to show some of my future writing talent, though it's marred in places with amateur mistakes. As always, comment and kudos away!**

**Published on Ao3 Tuesday March 3rd, 2020.**

**Edited sometime in 2019 to change Wales to Ireland. This version, however, was limited to FFN dot net, and so the copy-paste from my files could potentially have been very embarrassing.**


	18. Portraying Life's Beauty

The sky was pallid as we trudged through the soft new snow that blanketed the ground. The stuff spilled into my boots and clung to my socks, then melted and squished with every step I took. White moisture emanated from my mouth as my breath instantly froze. My lips were dry and the back of my throat sore, yet I did not stop for a drink or handful of snow.

A wind from the north blew unceasingly, ruffling my hair and blowing up the seams of my coat wherever it could find leakage.

My shortbow was slung over my back, and a single arrow, the only one that Hiccup could salvage, was stuffed into my worn belt.

Hiccup walked at my side, green eyes constantly scanning the forest around us for any trace of game, while simultaneously watching for dangerous animals. Somewhere out there the wolves still roamed on the island, and he was taking no chances. For that matter, neither was I. Our stomachs were empty, and I knew that if we could not find food fast enough then we would run out of energy. Sooner or later we would have to eat, or else fall asleep and simply not wake up again. This was fact.

I plunged into a rill in the ground and Hiccup followed me. Leading straight and downwards, it would prevent us from going in circles. The soil here was relatively clear of snow where the snow had blown over the depression. Not having to slog through the cumbersome snow was refreshing, I thought as I trampled over the leaves that had fallen to the forest floor. An old watercourse cut through the terrain here and through the trees, leading downhill until it inevitably joined a stream or brook. Perhaps animals would come to drink there, and if I was lucky I’d get a shot. Maybe even a kill.

The pungent scent of pine needles invaded my chilled nostrils. Heavy boughs leaned over the path like the inside of a tent, only it wasn’t as warm.

The bottom of the watercourse we were following turned to gravel. It was slippery, but not overly so, and our boots crunched on the rough surface.

I threw a glance over my shoulder. No threat appeared, or showed itself. It was the stress getting to me, like it was getting to Hiccup. I made longer strides, just in case.

Ten more minutes of uneasy travel later we arrived at a small waterfall where the rill, now a brook, had fallen off an overhang and into another winding course. There was no running water here, but ice had gathered in the stream bed, so we took that as a good sign. By now I had lost most of my sense of direction, but I reckoned the water led south, and we followed it.

All this time my ribs, which I thought had been broken but were only sprained, had been throbbing while we walked, and after another fifteen minutes of walking, Hiccup noticed that I seemed to be in pain.

But I said nothing, and so he said nothing, though I gather he was bothered by it. After ten minutes more we took a break by the stream, which had been steadily growing larger as more rills joined it until it was at least three feet across, while a little rivulet of running water had formed and was now seeping along the ice.

“I’m fine.” I said. But I didn’t believe it, and neither did he, for he scowled and looked away.

After a while the pain faded, and I felt well enough to continue.

What I really needed was rest. Two weeks of struggling to survive had taken their toll on my body as well as mind, not to mention the days spent fleeing for our lives. There are two kinds of exhausted; the good kind, where you go to bed with a feeling of a job well done and wake up with a smile; and the bad kind. Perpetual exhaustion. It didn’t take a genius to figure out which kind we were experiencing.

I pushed on, avoiding drifts where I could to save energy and helping Hiccup when he was stuck. The stream began to flow again. Here and there tiny tracks marked where small animals had come to drink and clean their fur. A bobcat watched us go by, then slipped off his perch and disappeared into the forest from his oaken perch. The higher altitude stands of pine were giving way to copses of birch and walnut with spanning branches that spread out over the sky to create a meager canopy.

The first rabbits began to appear, first in ones and twos, then in threes and small groups that would feed together and drink in the water that was now happily gurgling and bubbling along the lower banks until it was up to where my ankles would be in places, and always flowing and never really staying still, while the rabbits and the wild boars (related to woozles) calmly merged into the brush whenever I got within thirty paces of one, much too long a shot for my bow, even if I had had more arrows to spare.

The trees thinned out ahead of us, and soon it became clear that there was a woody glade up ahead, which I could just see if I strained my eyes to look through the brush. Muffled oinks and snorts told of where a group of wild sows had decided to come to the meadow. I signaled Hiccup to stop; much depended on whether or not I got a good shot, and I sure as niflheim didn’t want our crashing through the woods to spoil it.

Beginning carefully, I circled to the east to make sure our scents didn’t alert the pigs to our presence, for the wind, coming from the north, could ruin everything. After moving some paces, I paused to listen for the unmistakable sounds. They had not changed either in frequency or tempo. Either they had not smelled us approaching, or they were not yet acquainted with humans and had simply ignored us. I voted for the former. Still, I circled another hundred yards before I judged that it was safe to approach the meadow.

We had gone about a quarter of the way around the glade when I cautiously poked my head through the thickest of the brush.

Two wild boars roamed on opposite sides of the stream, which ran through the far side of the glade. A few sows rooted through the glade at the roots of the solitary tree in the middle, too far for a shot. The rotten husk of a fallen tree lay only ten paces in front of me, and one of the pigs looked like it might come over to investigate the snow-covered fungus that grew on it.

Luck was with me at that moment, for at that moment one of the sows immediately broke off from the main group to do just that. The larger boar on the near side rushed over and tried to gain her favor, but she rebuked his advances and continued towards the fallen log. I tensed, gingerly detached my arrow from my belt, took off my right glove.

The sow came within twenty paces, still oblivious to its fate. The boar, too, came closer, and blocked my shot. They paused, bickering with each other. For a moment it looked like they might turn back, but as if hearing my prayers, the sow tossed the male aside and scampered over to the mushrooms, started nibbling on them.

I put my arrow to the string and waited for the prey to relax. Once again the boar came closer. The sow turned and barked him away. While the two pigs had an argument I pulled back the string, and as the boar finally left I let fly.

The arrow flew low and to the right of my aiming point, smashing the pig in its rear hip and sending it spinning backwards into a rock with a shrill squeal. The other pigs looked and fled as the sow lost blood, the arrow having ripped open its belly.

I stepped out of the brush and put it out of its misery by snapping its neck. Then I began to retrieve the arrow.

It had dug deep into the flesh when it hit, and pierced the bones. I turned over the pig and found the head unmarred, for I had feared that it had cracked on the rocks. Unfortunately, under further investigation the shaft had snapped. Now my only arrow was broken.

Hiccup stepped out of the brush.

“Good kill. I’ll get the firewood.”

I nodded, then began to clean off the arrowhead in the snow. I did not rip open the pig’s belly because it was cold enough for bloating not to be a problem.

Hiccup began beating around the clearing while I gathered rocks and smoothed away the dirt and snow around the pig and from its body so that it would not get too wet to cook. Setting up a fireplace was almost second nature to me by now, so much so that by the time I was done Hiccup was just coming back with his first load of wood. We would need more than that to start a real fire, but I broke the branches down to a more manageable size anyway.

Hiccup came up to me with another, noticeably smaller load of firewood in his arms and dumped it on the ground.

“There’s not enough firewood left to cook the meat.”, he said, grimly surveying the small brush pile we had built up. “I’ll go into the forest and look for more.”

I started to protest, but he put up a hand. “I’ll be fine Astrid, just keep the meat safe. You can’t cook it if it isn’t there. Too risky.” He was right of course, but going into the forest alone was just as risky without a buddy with him. He could be attacked by wolves or fall into a chasm and I’d never know, much less be able to aid him.

“You can start the fire while I’m gone. And don’t forget the tinder.” With that he turned away and strode out of the clearing, leaving me rather frustrated.

Still, I decided, it wasn’t like I was being jumped by wolves, so there was that.

I cut away a strip of bark from a dead branch using the edge of the arrowhead, then began to shave it into smaller slivers until it was completely gone. The razor-sharp flint was hard to handle, and I took off my unwieldy homemade gloves. Hiccup might have been smart, but he didn’t know how to sew.

It stung my fingers a little, but in time I had a pile of tiny wood cuttings bunched together on the only dry surface I could find, coincidentally, my glove. But they needed to be smaller. Slice by slice I minced them like one would a carrot, until the bark had turned into a fluffy-looking brown ball. Now for the next strip of bark, and the next.

Larger shavings I made for the fire when it ran out of tinder and had not enough heat to burn the smaller branches. I also used twigs for this, and wood rot from the fallen log I scooped up by the handful and brought to the stones.

Once I had accumulated what I thought was enough and sheltered it from the wind, I arranged the firewood so that it looked something like a tiny tepee, a shape that I hoped would retain the heat from the fledgling flame. I grabbed the ball of shavings with care and placed in the middle of the stones. Then I looked around for a piece of metal to use. I didn’t have much other than my ruined knife and a belt buckle.

It was worth a try.

I took out the twisted blade, if it could even be called that anymore, and winced. The normally shining steel had been blunted horribly and bent almost double, while the handle had been distorted and cracked nearly in two so that it was unrecognizable. Considerably sized spots of rust decorated parts of the metal in places, some of them at least the width of my finger.

This was not a special knife for me, but I had put my name on the grip just so that if I lost it people wouldn’t think it unclaimed. The lettering had been totally eviscerated. It was a wreck, but not a total loss to anyone with a forge. Alas, we did not have a one of those, and I had to make do. Still, it looked like a dragon had stepped on it, and remembering my unpleasant stay at that cave, one probably had.

Trying to strike a piece like that against the flint would be impossible, or at the very least extremely hard to do, so I set about getting the thing back into a decent shape. First I tried pounding it with a larger rock, about a little larger than my palm, but that was too large and cumbersome for me to handle, and so I chose a smaller one, longer and thinner than the first with a rounded end, and after some careful work, for it was cold and the steel could’ve been brittle, I had a straight looking blade, which I began to whet, something which I had much more experience in. It still took a lot of time.

Once I could feel a noticeable edge and a sticky feeling as I moved the knife across my finger I figured that it was done, at least in a couple of places. I had also polished off the rust as best I could, although there were still places where the metal was duller as a result.

I touched the steel to the flint and struck forcibly. Sparks flew in multiple directions, but none of them caught. I was not close enough. I leaned forward and struck again. Sparks flew, and a few hit the tinder, but all of them were quickly blown out by the north wind, which had steadily increased from a tiny breeze to a gush to a constant, chilling wash of freezing air that stole my body heat and took away my breath.

I positioned my body to protect the fire-pit from the wind and tried again, this time with marginal success. The spark caught a little and tiny wisps of smoke began to rise from the pile, but then a gust came and it blew out before I could feed it. A few more failed tries revealed that the bark, though dry, was simply not fine enough for a spark to reliably catch.

Back to the cutting board.

Once I had turned the pile of tiny fluffy shavings into a pile of infinitesimal fluffy shavings I put the tinder nest back in the fire pit (taking care not to get any of it wet), and struck again.

This time the spark didn’t go out, and I leaned forwards and watched as a tiny plume of smoke rose from the pile, curling and eddying until it was carried away. A small flame flickered like a wisp, then died down. It needed air.

I exhaled on it gently, contracting my stomach slowly to force the air out, not daring to blow any harder for fear that I would extinguish the tiny fire prematurely. The baby fire luminously flared reddish-orange and began to spread. I reached for a tiny twig and delicately dropped it into the warmest part of the glow, holding my breath as I did.

For a moment the fire seemed to go out. But then the light came back, there was a crackle and a pop, and the twig seemed to brown and peel. Excited, I reached for another twig and some wood rot, put that in slowly. The fire dimmed once more, but less this time, and ate that too. I blew on it again, then brought a piece of bark, which was in the process of being consumed almost before I had set it down.

Piece by piece I built the fire until the original tinder was gone and it was feeding on tiny branches and wood rot, which I was nearly out of, and ten minutes after that I had a decent sized campfire going. Though not big enough to cook anything large in a decent amount of time, it would handle smaller pieces of meat just fine, so I began to butcher the pig.

As it turns out, sows are not so different from rabbits except for in the legs, and it did not take me long to find the seam with which I was able to skin the animal. Then I cut off its right hock and lopped off some of the belly with my knife, though it took me longer than it should have, and readied them to roast by slicing them into thinner pieces.

Only once I had finished this and fed the fire again with some of the dwindling supply of firewood did I begin to worry. Hiccup had not gotten back yet, although he should have been here half an hour ago. I decided that if he was not back by the time dusk fell I would go looking for him, although I had no idea where he’d gone.

Fortunately it didn’t take me long to find out. Hiccup plunged through the brush at the edge of the clearing, near the stream, and into the snowy meadow. He was carrying part of a log in both arms with some wood stashed over top of it, while his right hand held something that I could not see. He seemed to be severely taxed, and I came towards him so that I could relieve him of some of the load.

“What took you so long?” I asked him when I had finally got to him and he was unloading some of the firewood on me. Then he stopped and took a breath, though he didn’t stop walking towards the fire. When we had reached it he nodded appreciatively at the meat, put down his log, pulled up a chair and sat. Then he began to talk.

“I got lost in a gully while I was looking for some larger pieces of wood, maybe a fallen branch.”, at this he gestured at the piece of wood lying on the ground beside him. “When I got out I couldn’t really make heads or tails of where I was, so I reckoned the direction I thought I’d come from and headed back, or what I thought was back. Dumb decision I know. Should’ve just followed my tracks. Anyway once I’d been walking for about ten minutes or so I figured I’d been going the wrong direction, and by that time the wind would’ve erased my tracks. It picked up after I left.”

I nodded.

“So there I was, mostly lost with nowhere to go, so I just headed North, which was my second reckoning of the way home. I saw some deer out in the woods. They’re out in the snow and not yarding yet, which is a good sign. So I kept going until I ran smack-dab into a gravel bed. And there was flint. So I gathered some. There wasn’t much to begin with, and I dropped a bit in the snow, but here it is.”, and he held out the hand that he had been keeping secret with an open palm.

There were five or six flakes of it in his hand, as well as two larger chunks. It was grayish-white with creamy bits in the lumps, and the flakes of it were slate gray. None of it was edged, but that could be easily fixed. I took it from him and set it aside.

“How’d you get back?” I asked?

“I bumped into the brook and didn’t recognize the scenery, so I headed upstream and got back. I can see you’ve been busy while I was gone.” He looked at the meat, still laying by the fire. “What else did you do?”

“I salvaged the knife. Mostly. And I started a fire and cut up dinner.”

Hiccup smiled.

“Dinner. I never thought I’d be so glad to hear that word. How long has it been since we’ve had a really big meal? This looks like paradise right here. I could probably eat the entire pig all by myself, let alone you.”

“Yeah. Can you believe its only been two weeks since we’ve washed up here?”

“Really?”

“I think so.”

“It just seems so much longer than that, you know? Our parents must be worried sick about us right now. Gobber at the docks, saying we’re gone to our parents. He would be home by now. If he’s even gotten home at all.”

It was a grim thought, and neither of us said anything for a moment. Then Hiccup put on the bacon, and we looked out over the meadow.

“At least we’re still alive.”, said Hiccup. “Even after all the crap life has thrown at us, we’ve still made it. So far, I’ve been thrown into the sea, nearly drowned, nearly frozen, been chased by wolves, fought a dragon and survived living together with you for two weeks. I still think that’s pretty lucky.”

“It’s a crazy life out there.”

“I just never thought I’d end up here. Kinda puts the world into perspective, don’t you think. Hey! It’s not cloudy anymore.”

Indeed. The winter clouds had partially been blown away by the wind while we talked, and the sky in the west was clear.

Dinner was eaten amicably that night, and by the time we had dragged out some pine boughs to sleep on the sun was already setting behind the trees. There are few words that could describe that evening, as we watched the clouds scud above our heads, warmly glowing in the light of the sun.

When night fell, I was asleep almost before I was on the ground.

* * *

**Sorry for not updating this for so long, guys! I was busy with a few other things and I forgot about this for a while, plus the guilt made it difficult to come back. At any rate, I hope you enjoyed this tidbit of work.**

**Published Thursday July 2nd, 2020.**


End file.
